


Falling Up

by rainbowcello



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Anal Sex, Angst, Blow Jobs, Break Up, Dirty Talk, Drunk Sex, Drunken Flirting, Dubious Consent, Flashbacks, Implied/Referenced Mental Illness, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Esteem Issues, Sexual Insecurity, Underage Drinking, non-con is in the past and not explicitly described
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-06-01 17:04:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 43,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15147803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainbowcello/pseuds/rainbowcello
Summary: At first, Tsukishima could only feel anger. Then, after awhile, he started to realize something was wrong with him.When you're at your lowest, there's nowhere to fall but up.In which Tsukki is a computer science major who needs to eat more, and Kuroo is a biochemistry major who doesn't know Tsukki exists until they meet at a bar one night. Bokuto is a bouncer at the local dance club, and Akaashi is a source of much-needed comfort.





	1. Chapter 1

“Tsukki … we have to talk.”

Tsukishima Kei stared at his best friend, Yamaguchi Tadashi, then rolled his eyes. Yamaguchi had always told him that doing that was rude, but sometimes he really couldn’t help himself. “Yeah, I assumed that’s why you dragged me all the way over here.”

They had been eating lunch with a few of Yamaguchi’s classmates. They’d managed to grab one of the best spots on the university campus—plenty of shade, but not too much wind—but they’d only gotten halfway through their meal when Yamaguchi stood up and asked Kei to follow him. Now they were standing in the grass next to the back corner of the library, near some bushes. There were no windows in that particular section of the library, and the nearest sidewalk was over a hundred feet away, so obviously it was going to be a private sort of conversation. In one hand, Kei gripped his half-eaten sandwich that he’d hastily wrapped up in plastic. He stared at Yamaguchi with one pale eyebrow raised.

The thing was, Yamaguchi looked so nervous. He was never nervous around Kei. They’d known each other since  _ grade school _ , so they pretty much knew everything there was to know about each other. But Yamaguchi’s gaze flitted back and forth between Kei’s face and the ground, and his lips kept falling open ever-so-slightly, then snapping shut. It was actually really annoying.

Kei sighed. “Come on, spill it out. Tell me what’s going on.”

Yamaguchi flinched, which made Kei frown. He thought he’d made his voice gentle—he hadn’t meant to snap. “Hey.” He reached out and ran a thumb over the freckles on Yamaguchi’s cheek. “You can tell me anything.”

Yamaguchi nibbled on his lip, then took a deep breath. “Tsukki… I think we should break up.”

“What?”

Yamaguchi finally looked up and held his gaze, and Kei recoiled at the serious determination he saw in his eyes. “I said we should break up.”

He wasn’t joking. “Yamaguchi… What the hell? This is coming out of nowhere.”

“It’s not out of nowhere. We’ve had fights before.”

Kei scoffed. “We’ve been dating for four years. It’s  _ normal  _ for people who’ve been together that long to fight about stupid stuff.”

“It’s NOT—” Yamaguchi stopped himself, then continued in a quieter voice. “It’s not stupid stuff. And the fact that you can’t see that is just another reason for me to believe this is the right thing to do.”

Kei’s head was whirling. He tried to remember all the things they’d argued about, but he couldn’t think straight enough to say which ones had been important and which ones had been … stupid stuff. Every time they’d fought, Kei had just wanted to end the argument as quickly as possible. He’d known Yamaguchi was stubborn, but he’d never imagined that he would develop a grudge because of those arguments. “We can talk about this. If there’s something I can fix, just tell me!”

“You’ve never changed for me before. It’s too late for you to start trying now.”

“Like hell!” Kei burst out. “I never would have applied for this school, but I studied extra hard to get accepted because  _ you  _ wanted to go here! I let you convince me to go to Pride meetings, even though they’re all just a bunch of pretentious activist wannabes! I … I stopped eating red meat because you did! I have sex with you whenever you want to, even though half the time—”

Kei bit down on his tongue and clenched his eyes shut. He felt something dangerously close to shame roll through his gut. He hadn’t meant to shout, and he hadn’t meant to bring  _ that  _ up, but when he opened his eyes, Yamaguchi was just looking at him sadly. 

“Yeah, Tsukki. I know about that. And there’s nothing wrong with the way you feel. But I have to think about my own feelings, too. Because I’ve  _ tried  _ to change for you, but it just doesn’t work. Maybe … maybe you think I’m shallow, but sex is  _ important _ . I can’t pretend we’re compatible anymore, not in that way. I’ve been  _ stuck  _ for so long, but I don’t think I have to be. So you can’t change my mind. I want … I want to find someone who’s better for me.”

Kei could barely unclench his teeth to speak. “So … just like that? You’re leaving me just like that?”

Yamaguchi swallowed, and nodded. “I’m sorry it seems so sudden to you, but… I’ve been unhappy for a long time. Maybe … maybe now you’ll get the chance to be happy too?”

He felt sick. Yamaguchi was unhappy. He was unhappy because of  _ him _ . “Yama— _ Tadashi _ …” His voice came out strangled and a bit desperate, so he quickly turned around to face the pale stone wall of the library. He refused to beg, and he didn’t want to fight anymore. He thought hard, scoured his brain for some miraculous knowledge of the words that Yamaguchi needed to hear, but he couldn’t think of anything. 

There was nothing to say.

“I’m gonna go to class now,” he heard Yamaguchi say. His voice sounded sad. “I’ll see you later, okay?”

Kei closed his eyes and waited. He waited for Yamaguchi’s soft footfalls in the grass to fade away until all he could hear was the roaring of blood in his own ears. The longer he stood still, the more he felt the pressure inside of him building up. He couldn’t think, and the awful feeling was smothering him from the inside. 

He felt his body snap into motion, and before he could think about what he was doing, a burning sensation erupted in his hand. He opened his eyes, the pain clearing the fog in his head just a bit, and examined his red knuckles. He’d punched the wall. He’d never punched a wall before. His whole hand throbbed, but it didn’t look too bad.  _ Oh, nevermind,  _ he thought, as he watched one of his scraped knuckles start to bleed. 

He took shallow breaths and waited to feel something other than anger.  _ I can’t believe he’d leave me. This isn’t fair.  _ He couldn’t even clench his fists now, because his right hand hurt too much. In his left hand, he felt something sticky. He looked down and saw the sandwich that he’d forgotten he was still holding. He’d squeezed it too hard, and his nails had dug through the plastic wrap. Now there was avocado all over his hand. The annoying sticky sensation did absolutely nothing to diffuse his anger.

“Tch. Whatever,” he muttered, and tossed the ruined sandwich on the ground. He made for the library entrance to use the bathroom inside to wash his hands. It wasn’t like he felt like going to his afternoon classes anyway.

* * *

 

_ “Tsukki,” Yamaguchi moaned into his ear, the feeling of his hot breath making tingles run down Kei’s spine, “you look so sexy tonight.” _

_ Kei groaned as his boyfriend straddled him and ground his hips up and down, his position giving him height over Kei for once. “You ...ah… look good, too.” That statement was mostly a guess on Kei’s part, because he could barely focus on Yamaguchi’s face. His glasses were knocked crooked, for one, and the amount that he’d had to drink was making everything—not just his vision—just a little bit wobbly. He was grateful for the sturdy wooden back of the desk chair he was sitting in. Without its support, he might have fallen over the minute he tried to sit down. _

_ Yamaguchi leaned down and clamped his lips over his. Kei kissed him back and rested his hands on his hips, but Yamaguchi was squirming and grinding so much, it was hard to keep a good grip. So he reached up and threaded his fingers through his soft brown hair. Yamaguchi seemed pleased by the sensation on his scalp, and he moaned into Kei’s mouth. _

_ After a few minutes, though, Kei grew overwhelmed by the pressure on his hips. He yanked his boyfriend’s lips off of his with a gentle tug on his hair. “Yamaguchi. Bed.” _

_ Yamaguchi hopped up and quickly jumped onto his bed, sprawled onto his side so he could watch Kei. _

_ Kei took his time getting up, gripping his chair so that he wouldn’t fall over. Once he stood mostly upright, he started fumbling one-handed with the button on his jeans. His eyes narrowed on Yamaguchi. “Come on, get your pants off.” If they were going to have sex, Kei didn’t want to have to do all the work. _

_ By the time Kei was stepping out of his jeans, Yamaguchi was fully naked. “C’mere, Tsukki.” _

_ He wobbled over to the bed and crawled over Yamaguchi. He braced himself over him, knees just barely squeezing his thighs. They’d forgotten to turn off the lights in the room, but Kei was glad. This was a good position for him to stare at Yamaguchi. “You’re such a good dancer,” he murmured with a blush. “You looked so pretty tonight.” _

_ Yamaguchi grinned up at him. “You’re drunk, Tsukki. Your arms are shaking and you’re giving me cheesy compliments.” _

_ “Shut up, Yamaguchi. You’re drunk, too.” He’d certainly had more to drink than Kei had; he could remember that clearly. _

_ “Maybe,” he replied with a throaty laugh that traveled straight to Kei’s cock. “Maybe I’m just drunk on love.” _

_ “Tch.” How dare he accuse Kei of being cheesy? He leaned down and covered Yamaguchi’s lips in a kiss, just to shut him up.  _

_ Yamaguchi wrapped his arms around him, and Kei enjoyed the warm feeling, but soon Yamaguchi was squirming again. Kei lifted his head and looked down. Yamaguchi’s face was a blur, but he could hear his words clearly. _

_ “I want you to fuck me, Tsukki.” _

_ “Ah,” was his only response. His face felt hot. _

_ “Come up here.” Yamaguchi gestured at his face shamelessly. “I’ll get you ready.” _

_ Kei hadn’t known he needed help. The warm buzz of the alcohol inside him seemed to amplify all the pleasure he was feeling. But he scooted up obediently until his hips were almost in Yamaguchi’s face. He grabbed his own cock, surprised at how soft it was, and ran his fist up and down his length a few times before pulling back the foreskin and rubbing at the sensitive head. _

_ When Yamaguchi took over with his tongue and his lips, Kei felt the dark heat of shame sinking in his gut. He braced his arms against the wall to give his hips more mobility. He pushed just the head of his cock into Yamaguchi’s mouth, and looked down at him to see his tongue slipping out of his mouth and teasing the underside of his shaft. Kei groaned at the sensation, trying to focus on Yamaguchi’s freckles and his long eyelashes.  _ He’s so beautiful,  _ he thought.  _ He’s so beautiful. He’s mine. My beautiful Tadashi.  _ His head was whirling, threatening to topple him over, so he leaned forward and pressed the top of his head against the wall, neck craning so he could still look down at Yamaguchi. _

_ After a few minutes, Yamaguchi reached up and cupped Kei’s ass, pulling him in closer. With his other hand, he stroked lightly down his perineum and finally reached his balls, fondling them gently. Kei moaned and closed his eyes. It felt good, it felt so good— _

_ It came as a flash, an image rearing up from the dregs of his memory just for a brief moment. It was a different night, a different bed, a different man’s face. It came and went in a flash, but it froze all of the liquid heat that had been pooling in Kei’s groin. His thighs were shaking. _

_ “Tsukki,” Yamaguchi complained, “you’re not responding well.” _

_ He looked down at his cock lying limply on his lover’s chin. Yamaguchi’s face was scrunched up in a frustrated frown. He’d been working so hard, and Kei couldn’t even get hard for him. _

_ “Sorry,” Kei huffed out with a toneless chuckle. “I guess I really did have too much to drink.” He rolled off of Yamaguchi and slid up to his side, even though he wanted to turn away. _

_ “Are … are you sure that’s all it is?” _

_ “What do you mean?” Kei took in his persistent frown and the way his thumb wiped furiously at his own lips, as if he was scrubbing off any remnants of Kei. “Hey, I’m sorry, I—” _

_ “Maybe you’ve been thinking about someone else.” Yamaguchi squinted up at the ceiling. “Maybe a certain bartender with stupid black hair. Shit, I dunno…” _

_ “What the hell,” Kei protested. “I barely even looked at the guy. The only reason we even got into that bar was because you flirted with the bouncer.” _

_ “Yeah, well, maybe it wasn’t a good idea to go there, I’ll admit that. But if you didn’t like it, you could have said something. I would have stopped, and we could have gone somewhere else. But we had fun tonight, and it’s not like I thought that bouncer was actually attractive—” _

_ “Yamaguchi…” _

_ “—but if I’d known there’d be sexy bartenders working in that bar, maybe I wouldn’t have bothered. Am I not enough for you anymore?” _

_ “Yamaguchi, that’s not it at all!” Kei squeezed both hands around his arm and pressed his face into his shoulder. He was too drunk to process all the words that Yamaguchi was spitting out, but he knew that he was jealous, and he was disappointed in him. And that hurt more than he’d ever admit. “I wasn’t thinking about anybody but you, I swear. I’m just drunk, and tired, and it’s … it’s just something that happens sometimes.” _

_ “It’s been happening too much lately,” Yamaguchi grumbled as he removed Kei’s glasses. “You’re not allowed to be so sexy and then … and then not give me sex.” _

_ Kei snorted at the childish words. “I’ll give you lots of sex tomorrow, I swear.” He just wanted them to be okay.  _

_ After a moment, Yamaguchi relaxed in his arms. “Yeah… That’ll be something to look forward to, I guess.” He yawned. “Turn off the light?” _

_ Kei pressed a kiss to his arm, then carefully stood up. Without his glasses on, it took a concerted effort to find his boxers on the floor and pull them on. Then he quickly flipped the light switch. He stumbled back to bed, where Yamaguchi pulled the covers over them. They held each other close, and Kei fell asleep believing that everything would be all right. _

* * *

It wasn’t as if Yamaguchi had disappeared from his life. They still shared a dorm room, the same social circle, and they even had one gen ed class together. Kei had no interest in seeing the face of the person who had turned all of his thoughts sour, though. He knew Yamaguchi’s schedule like it was his own, so it was easy to just work around it. He avoided the dining hall when he knew he would be there. He started taking long walks at night, so that by the time he returned to the dorm, Yamaguchi was already asleep. He stopped talking to his friends. They were all Yamaguchi’s friends, really, and if they had any sympathy for him, they would have come forward. The class they shared also had an easy solution. It was a course Kei could take any other semester, and it was only September, early enough that he could still drop the class without it affecting his GPA—so he did just that.

He told himself that they could still be friends, that they could hang out any time. They’d been best friends far longer than they’d been dating, after all. But the longer Kei waited for Yamaguchi to approach him, the more he realized that he didn’t want him to. There was no way they could be friends when Kei was so angry at him. His whole life had been disrupted to such a drastic degree that it felt unreal, and it was all Yamaguchi’s fault. 

Every time he bought a fruit parfait, Yamaguchi wasn’t there to take out the blueberries for him. Every time he walked into a building, Yamaguchi wasn’t there to take off his headphones and make him talk to people. Whenever he took a late night shower, Yamaguchi wasn’t there to sneak into the shower stall with him. Whenever he got a headache, Yamaguchi wasn’t there to give him painkillers and a cold towel.

And his headaches had been getting worse. Kei was walking across the quad, from the science building to the library, when a flash of vibrant orange jumped into the bottom corner of his vision. Kei sighed and stopped walking. “Why do you always pop out of nowhere?” There was no point trying to avoid Hinata. He didn’t take off his headphones, though—he knew he would be able to hear Hinata’s voice over the soft, mellow music he was listening to.

Hinata ignored Kei’s mostly-hypothetical question. “Tsukishima!” He yelled in a voice that could surely be heard by everyone on the quad. “There’s a rally for transgender rights being held down at city hall on Saturday morning. We want as many people to come as possible, really make a big presence—”

“I don’t care.” He’d been to a few of those sorts of events with Yamaguchi. He had stood quietly holding up a homemade sign while Yamaguchi did all the shouting and chanting with the others. Just the thought of going to a rally now was giving him a headache. “Where’s your other half?” He peered over the top of Hinata’s head easily, but he didn’t see anyone else nearby.

“Tobio’s at the gym!” Hinata exclaimed proudly.

Kei relaxed a bit. Hinata was annoying but amusing, where as his boyfriend, Kageyama Tobio, was just annoying. He was cocky and standoffish, and he disliked Kei more than Kei disliked him. 

“Anyway, we’re having a meeting tonight to make signs and come up with an action plan! It’s gonna be so awesome, Noya says it’s really busy downtown on Saturdays, and the farmer’s market will be right across the street, so all these people will be walking by and we’ll just be like— _ bam! _ —in their faces!”

“Hey, midget.” Kei pushed his glasses up with two fingers and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m not going.”

Hinata cocked his head. “If it’s about Yamaguchi … I don’t think he’ll be there.”

“Shut up. I don’t care either way. I just have better things to do on a Saturday.” He told himself that he didn’t care why Yamaguchi wasn’t going to the rally, when he normally loved that kind of thing.

“Come on, you have to come!” Hinata whined. “Besides, I know you don’t ever do anything on Saturdays. You don’t even study. Yamaguchi says you always save your homework for the last minute on Sunday night.”

“Do I need to kick your ass? I said I’m not going!” His headache was throbbing right between his eyes. “You can tell Yamaguchi he can go and he won’t have to worry about seeing me.”

“Eh? Why do I have to tell him? You guys are roommates.”

Kei gritted his teeth and started walking the other way, towards his dorm. Yamaguchi had a class in five minutes, so he didn’t think he’d be there. “He doesn’t want to talk to me right now.”

“Ts-Tsukishima! Wait up!”

Kei started walking faster and turned up the volume of his music, even though it made the pain in his head worse. He made it to the dorm in less than five minutes. If Hinata had tried to follow him, he’d quickly given up. He guessed even for someone as shameless as Hinata, there was something humiliating about running after someone who was over a foot taller than you. He made his way up to his room on the second floor and opened the door. The room was dark and quiet.

He shrugged off his satchel and let it fall to the floor.  _ Who does he think he is? _ He went to his desk and pulled the bottle of Tylenol out of the drawer.  _ How can he blame me for everything?  _ He shook the bottle into his hand and threw the small handful of pills into his mouth.  _ How could he just give up on me after all this time?  _ He opened up their mini fridge and grabbed a bottle of water.  _ Does he really think he’s better off without me?  _ He screwed off the cap of the bottle and washed down the pills with cold water.  _ How long has he been lying to me?  _ He pulled the covers off his bed and fell down onto the soft mattress.  _ I hate him.  _

He took off his glasses and set them on the little table next to the head of the bed. He didn’t look at Yamaguchi’s bed. He lay flat on his back and pulled his comforter up to his ribs. He still felt hot from walking around in the sun, but the AC was blowing strong, and maybe if he just lay still for awhile, his headache would go away. He closed his eyes.

_ I should have told him I loved him. If I had said those words to him, maybe he would have changed his mind. _

Kei groaned and rolled to face the wall. He hated just the thought of begging and pleading for Yamaguchi to take him back. He wasn’t that pathetic, and he refused to let Yamaguchi make him pathetic. How fair was it that Kei should have to change? They’d been happy for years with Kei just being himself. And Yamaguchi had laughed at his sarcastic remarks, and supported him, and encouraged him to grow, but never to change who he was.

_ Yamaguchi’s changed, that must be it.  _ He rubbed furiously at his temple.  _ He’s outgrown me, or maybe he found someone he likes better than me. Shit, maybe he’s been cheating on me! Maybe I should ask him. I’ll make him admit it, and tell me how long it’s been going on, and then I’ll— _

He rolled back onto his back and pressed down on his eyes with his palms.  _ Stop it. Just stop it,  _ he told himself. He knew he couldn’t prevent these dark thoughts from appearing, but maybe if he refused to indulge them, he wouldn’t get so worked up and angry. He told himself that even if Yamaguchi confessed to something like that, it probably wouldn’t make him feel any better.

_ Damn him. Damn him for making me feel this way. _

He must have fallen asleep at some point, because he eventually opened his eyes and was greeted by the evening sun shining directly through the blinds. He sat up with a soft groan. His head still hurt, but it was a dull ache that encased his whole skull, which was easier to ignore than the centralized throbbing. He got out of bed and pulled his phone out of the outer pocket of his satchel. He saw that it was just after six o’clock. Yamaguchi was probably eating dinner. He also saw that he had received two texts, and opened them reluctantly.

_ Hinata: im sorry if i upset u. i thought u and yamaguchi were still on good terms (2:14 p.m.) _

_ Hinata: if u need to tlk about it just let me know (2:22 p.m.) _

He snorted dismissively and closed the messages without responding, but he couldn’t help the small smile that pulled at the corners of his mouth.

* * *

Kei woke up the next morning to a surprising sight. Yamaguchi was sprawled out on his stomach, still asleep in bed. He had forgotten that Yamaguchi didn’t have any morning classes on Friday, and liked to sleep in. The last few days, Kei had been coming back to the room late at night and waiting to wake up until he was sure Yamaguchi had left for breakfast. If he had remembered Yamaguchi would be sleeping in, he would have woken himself up earlier. He had missed a lot of classes lately, and he had homework to catch up on, too.

He went down the hall to take a quick shower, and when he got back, Yamaguchi was still asleep, thankfully. He couldn’t help wondering if he had gone to the Pride meeting last night, if he had painted signs and laughed at someone else’s jokes.  _ It’s too early for this shit,  _ he chastised himself as he felt anger and bitter jealousy start to bubble in his stomach.  _ If I keep this up, I’ll end up punching a wall again.  _ And that would be too pathetic. He got dressed quickly and in silence.

He stopped by the little cafe on the first floor of the student union, which was much closer to the dorm than the dining hall was. He purchased his cafe au lait and strawberry danish, then wandered back outside. Even though September was almost over, it had been hot all week, so he wanted to enjoy the mild weather before the sun got too high. He found a spot to sit and eat, not worrying too much about the fact that he was near a popular walkway. Yamaguchi wouldn’t be up for awhile, and he would probably spend most of the morning playing games on his laptop.

Kei wondered if he was doing everything by himself now, like he was. Last spring, they had picked their classes for sophomore year together, doing their best to find classes at the same time so that they could spend all their free time together. Of course, now Kei knew that that had all been a waste of effort. A waste of time.

He made it through all of his classes that day without running into anyone who tried to talk to him. He did get some stray glances from people who were used to see him walking between classes with Yamaguchi, but it was easy for him to ignore glances from idiots. He made it all the way through his last class without letting his simmering anger to bubble over. However, when he walked out of the computer lab at four o’clock, he was greeted with a sight that threatened to blow his composure away entirely.

At the bottom of the steps that led up to the building, Yamaguchi was huddled with Hinata and Kageyama. Yamaguchi’s back was turned to him, but the first thing that Kei noticed was that he stood with a slouch, making him seem closer to Hinata’s height than Kageyama’s. This didn’t look good. Kei froze on the top step, trying to decide if he should go back inside and try to escape out the back door. But before he could decide, Kageyama spotted him and muttered something to Yamaguchi. 

When Yamaguchi turned around, Kei’s heart clenched. All of the muscles in Yamaguchi’s face just  _ drooped _ , and he didn’t even look up at Kei. He just stood there, waiting.

Well, there was no point trying to run away now. Kei walked down the steps slowly, trying to reassure himself.  _ See, he hasn’t been running around carefree and happy like you thought.  _ But seeing Yamaguchi’s apparent misery didn’t give him a single ounce of vindictive joy. In fact, it made him a little bit angrier. If Yamaguchi hadn’t broken up with him, then they wouldn’t both have to be miserable, and Kei would be able to see Yamaguchi’s brilliant smile again.

“What’s this?” he asked as he approached the small group, trying to make his voice casual. “If you have something to say, you don’t have to wait around for me. There’s this useful invention called  _ cell phones _ .” He directed his stare pointedly at Kageyama and Hinata.

“I’m sorry, Tsukishima!” Hinata said, his tiny body trembling with nervous energy. “We didn’t want to ambush you like this, but Tobio and I can’t stand seeing you two mope around anymore! You need to talk to each other!”

“We do?” Kei raised an eyebrow and finally looked at Yamaguchi. “Do you have something to say to me? Because I don’t have anything to say to you.”

Yamaguchi didn’t look up, and he didn’t fidget nervously like he had the last time they saw each other three days ago. He just stared at the ground, and he looked so tired.

“Tch.” Kei made a move to step around the three of them, but a small voice stopped him.

“Wait … Tsukki…” 

Kei stopped and looked back at Yamaguchi, unable to stop his breath from catching at the sound of that nickname.

But Yamaguchi still couldn’t look at him. “I … I just wanted to know if … if you were okay…”

“Hmm? Do you want to go back to the way we were? Or do you want to be just friends?” he scoffed.

“Oi,” Kageyama barked at him. “Let him talk. His feelings are important, too.”

“His feelings?” Kei whirled on Kageyama, and before he knew it he’d lost control of his anger altogether, because it was Kageyama. “I’m the one he broke up with! I didn’t ask for this! He … he already made his feelings perfectly clear!”

“Idiot!” Kageyama snapped back, stepping up to Kei’s chest. “That doesn’t mean he can’t talk to you if he wants to!”

“Oh, sure! He just wants me to tell him that I’m doing just fine so that he doesn’t have to feel guilty! Isn’t that right?” He turned back to Yamaguchi, who looked like he was about to cry. The sight was infuriating.  _ He has no right!  _ “You said you wanted to be happy without me! Is that still true?” He knew that Kageyama was about five seconds away from punching him, but he didn’t care. “Well, is it?!”

Yamaguchi flinched, and his eyes jumped up to Kei’s for just a second, before falling back to the ground. “I … I meant what I said.”

Just like that, Kei’s heart froze over again.

“But I still care about you. I want us to be friends.”

Kei stared at Yamaguchi, and by the time he was absolutely sure he had nothing else to say, his breathing was back to normal. “Well, that’s just great,” he muttered. “Now you can feel what it’s like to want something you can’t have.”

Yamaguchi didn’t move. He didn’t speak.

So Kei walked away. He walked down the bright path that went past the music building and the theater building. No one called after him. He walked until he reached a crossroads, and he turned onto a street lined with parked cars. He walked past a frat house, past the administration center, past a sorority house, past another frat house, and turned again onto the smaller, cobblestone road that led to his dorm. He walked through their small parking lot, which was half empty. It was a Friday afternoon, and many of the students who had parents who lived nearby had gone to stay with them for the weekend.

He almost stopped to lean against a random car. He looked up at the tall building where he slept, bathed, studied, and kept his dearest possessions. But he only had to make it to the second floor, so he kept going. He entered the chilly building through the side entrance and climbed up the stairs. When he reached the second floor landing, he pulled his room key out of his pocket. He walked down the hall to his room, unlocked it, and went inside. When the door closed behind him, he leaned against it.

_ Tadashi really doesn’t want me anymore. Not the way that I want him. _

He stripped down to his underwear and crawled into bed. He pulled the covers up to his chin and curled into a ball.  _ I think this is what grief feels like.  _ If it was, then no one had warned him that grief would be a tangled, writhing mess of anger, longing, guilt, and pain. All these emotions—and others that he couldn’t name—tugged on him from every direction, demanding reactions from him, demanding that he do something. But he couldn’t.

_ I’m too tired. _

To hit something, to cry, to talk to someone about this, were all reactions that were beyond him. So he held himself until he fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> This is my first ever fanfic, so ... so ...  
> *dodges knives from Tsukiyama shippers*  
> ...Um, there's just going to be a lot of hurt all around in this one, so if you're into that, stick around! There's also going to be good sexytimes ahead. I just had to throw the sad sex in this chapter to show how serious I was about that explicit rating.  
> Also: I kinda based the college off of the small midwestern university I went to. The point is that this is set in America, but I'm trying to keep the details as nebulous as possible so you can imagine whatever setting you want. So yeah, the setting is so not important, but! The drinking age is definitely 21 here, which will be kind of important to know.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for underage drinking and PAIN in this chapter.

When Kei woke, he was confused to see the bright light drifting in the window. He blinked and moved his tongue around in his mouth. He felt well-rested, so how was it still so light outside? He groped for his glasses, and ended up knocking them to the floor, but he was able to grab his phone. Oh. It was ten in the morning. That meant that he’d been sleeping for—it took him an embarrassingly long moment to do the math in his head—almost eighteen hours. That definitely wasn’t normal. Probably wasn’t even healthy. He had been going to bed later and later these past few days, though. He must have fallen behind on sleep without really noticing.

He sat up and wiggled out the kinks in his neck. Then he looked over at Yamaguchi’s bed. He really had to squint without his glasses on, but he could tell that the bed was made up neatly. No human-shaped lumps. Good. Maybe Yamaguchi had made it to that rally after all.

As Kei got up and slowly got dressed, he realized that everything hurt just as much as it had the previous day. It was just as bad, but it was different. Somehow, while sleeping away the greater part of a day, all his anger at Yamaguchi had drained away. What remained was an overwhelming sadness, complicated by a hazy filter of doubt. He felt, for the first time, that maybe Yamaguchi wasn’t his real problem. He couldn’t say what the real problem was, because the sadness that Yamaguchi had caused was too distracting, but it gnawed at him.

He stood in the middle of his room, in a pair of baggy gray sweatpants he’d picked up off the floor and a t-shirt that featured two battling t-rexes. _What should I do?_ The scope of his uncertainty was limited to the day before him. Anything beyond that was too painful to comprehend. _What am I supposed to do right now?_ He had put on clothes. That was a start. And next? Brush his teeth? Go get something to eat? Go to the library to study? He waited for his brain to supply an activity that sounded appealing.

After a minute, nature made his choice for him. He slunk down the hallway to the bathroom, avoiding eye contact with the few people he passed on the way. After he’d emptied his bladder, he was back in his room. There was simply nothing good to do, he decided. He smoothed out the comforter on his bed and lay down on top of it. He pulled his phone to his chest and started playing mindless games.

Two hours passed by easily, and Kei realized that a headache was starting to form behind his eyes. Probably from staring at a screen too much. He set his phone down and sighed. He had a programming project due on Monday. And the longer he lay there, the more nervous he became that Yamaguchi might come back and find him lying there. He might try to talk to Kei.

After a few minutes of hesitation, he got up and grabbed a bottle of water. He gulped down half of it before taking two Tylenols. Hopefully that was enough to halt his headache in its tracks before it got too annoying. He shoved his laptop and HTML cheat booklet into his bag before slipping on his moccasins and leaving the room.

He went to the cafe and bought a black iced coffee. It wasn’t as hot outside as it had been earlier in the week, but it was still very bright, which didn’t do his headache any favors. He made his way quickly to the library and found a soft chair to settle down in. He put on his headphones, opened his laptop and slowly started typing away at his project. This kind of programming was simple for him. As a sophomore, he was still taking the easier courses for his computer science major. Today, though, it was hard to make any headway, and the pauses between typing became longer and longer. This project was for one of three courses he was taking that he absolutely had to pass if he was going to enter the computer science professional program next semester. This project should be easy, he just had to concentrate and power through the minutiae.

 _What’s the point?_ he found himself asking himself. _Pretending that I’m fine and that I can function without Yamaguchi won’t bring him back to me._

Kei took off his glasses and pressed his palms against his eyelids. He needed to stop getting distracted. He couldn’t get what he wanted, so he might as well focus on what he needed to get done. He couldn’t stand feeling so useless. He put his glasses back on and resumed his work with a surge of determination.

He got twenty minutes of solid work done before he started to feel uneasy again. The characters on the screen blurred out as his sadness reached up to grip his mind. The image of Yamaguchi’s drooping face overtook his vision. Why did they both have to be miserable? Why couldn’t they be happy together? Why couldn’t Kei make him happy? Why wasn’t he enough? Why?

He took his phone out of his bag and typed out a quick message to his older brother, Akiteru.

_Kei: Are you still coming to visit next weekend? (1:06 p.m.)_

He gazed unfocusedly at his laptop screen, and tapped out an erratic rhythm on the flat surface next to the mouse pad. A few minutes later, his phone buzzed with an incoming text message.

_Akiteru: Yep! I’m getting my oil changed tomorrow so that my car will be ready for the trip. Are you looking forward to some non-cafeteria food? (1:09 p.m.)_

_Kei: As long as it’s not Olive Garden again. (1:09 p.m.)_

_Akiteru: But their breadsticks are so good! And the lunch special is really cheap. (1:10 p.m.)_

_Kei: I don’t care. Pick something else this time, and I’ll pay. I don’t care how expensive. (1:11 p.m.)_

They exchanged a few more messages, then Kei put his phone away and got back to work. By two o’clock, he gave up on finishing the project that day. There was no real way to half-ass it. The code either worked or it didn’t. So he left it unfinished and packed up his satchel. His feet started carrying him towards the dining hall. Maybe after he got something to eat, he would be able to get more studying done. He’d fallen behind in his history class. If he got at least one chapter read, he’d be a little more prepared for the midterm that was in two weeks.

The main cafeteria was closed, since it was outside of regular meal hours, but there was a little shop in the same building that sold burgers and other sandwiches. There were several students in line, since it was the only good option for people looking to use their meal cards. When he got to the front of the line, he took off his headphones and ordered a BLT sandwich, since Yamaguchi wasn’t around to bug him about not eating pork anymore.

Kei sat down at one of the empty tables and bit into his sandwich. It had been almost a year since he’d eaten any red meat, but he got no joy from the taste of the bacon. It was cold and cardboard-like in texture, and when he chewed it got stuck in his molars. He hunched over the table and refused to look up until he finished eating the sandwich.

When he finished, he considered the bag of potato chips he’d also got. He decided to save them for later, shoving them into his bag noisily as he got to his feet. As he did so, he noticed someone had sat down at the table next to him. It was a petite blonde girl, and she’d totally been staring at him. He definitely recognized her—she had lived in the same freshman residence hall as him last year, along with Yamaguchi, Kageyama, and Hinata. She always just kind of popped up quietly out of nowhere whenever he was hanging out with a large group of people, but he didn’t know her major or even her name.

“Oh! H-hello, Tsukishima!” she stammered as he stood up. She’d noticed that he had caught her staring.

“Hey,” he greeted neutrally, before walking away to spare both of them any more awkwardness. He headed to the other end of the building, where there was another coffee shop, and ordered another iced coffee. You couldn’t use your meal card to buy coffee, so he had to pull out his debit card again. He didn’t really need the caffeine, but it was worth it to wash out the taste of greasy bacon from his mouth.

He put his headphones back on and stepped outside. He had to walk through a heavily populated corner of the quad to get back to the dorm. Most people didn’t study on Saturdays, especially on a sunny day like this. _He_ didn’t usually study on Saturdays. It seemed like everyone who wasn’t nursing a hangover was out on the sunny lawn, or hanging out in the shade of the large oak trees that dotted the quad. Kei stuck to the right side of the sidewalk as students ran and biked past him, until a blur of vibrant color streaked right in front of his face.

He stopped right in his tracks, shocked by the realization that something had nearly hit his _face_. His glasses could have been broken, and that would have been just the perfect thing to deal with on top of everything else, but if he hadn’t stopped, he wouldn’t have had to deal with—

A guy named Inuoka came running up to him, breathing heavily. “Sorry ‘bout that, Tsukishima! I’m still working on controlling my strength.” He hopped to the other side of the sidewalk to pick up the bright yellow frisbee that had hit a tree instead of Kei. “Wanna join us?”

Kei ducked his head down, trying to avoid Inuoka’s eager smile. “No thanks.”

“Heyyy! Slow poke!”

Kei would have recognized that scream anytime, anywhere. His head jerked up to see Hinata standing about two hundred feet away, his hair shining blindingly in the sun. There were several other boys in their year grouped nearby. One of them was Yamaguchi.

“All right, see you later!” As Inuoka started running back to his group, Hinata waved at Kei. He ducked his head and hurried away before Yamaguchi could spot him too.

He didn’t run, but he was gasping for breath by the time he got back to his room. It was hard to process all the feelings that were flooding into him suddenly, and he stood in the middle of his room, hunched over slightly. Yamaguchi had looked so carefree. He had looked _happy_. Kei had been wrong. He was the only one who was miserable. He stared at the yellowing bruises on his knuckles. Everyone else expected him to get over it. He was supposed to be fine, he was supposed to be happy like Yamaguchi. As if the four years they had been lovers had just been an unfortunate mistake. No one cared that he was suffering.

_No one cares. No, they probably made him do it. It was Kageyama or Hinata that told Yamaguchi he should break up with me. They’re probably sick of me hanging around all the time, so they told Yamaguchi to get rid of me._

Yeah, that was it. They’d fed lies about him to his sweet Yamaguchi, and turned him against him. Nishinoya was probably in on it, too. He was always trying to influence his underclassmen to make himself feel important. That was the only explanation for why Yamaguchi would hurt him.

Because Kei loved Tadashi.

_But does that make me lovable?_

His breath stuttered then caught at the back of his throat.

_Does loving him make me a good person?_

He choked out a sob he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in.

_It’s not him._

He fell to his knees.

_It was never him. It’s been me this whole time. I’ve always been the problem._

The reason for the fights, the reason for Tadashi’s unhappiness, it was him. He drove Tadashi to the point where he had to break up with him. He had no one to blame but himself. He choked on his own breath as tears fell freely down his cheeks.

_I’m awful. I made him unhappy._

He fell back against the side of Tadashi’s bed and wrenched his glasses off his face.

_I’m too cynical. Too pessimistic. I was bringing him down. Whenever he tried to tell me what was wrong, I just did what I could to shut him up. I took him for granted._

He cried out loud, and wiped furiously at his eyes in a futile effort to stop the tears.

_I was a bad lover. I should have been honored to please him, but sex seemed like too much of a bother. I couldn’t even get it up for him half the time. That must have made him feel so awful._

He hunched over and hugged himself to try to stop his sobs from wracking his body.

_I’ve been nothing but selfish. I don’t deserve him. I’m ugly, so ugly, inside and out. He’s better off without me, but I want him back, more than anything._

There was something wrong with him.

* * *

_“Why won’t you come with me?” Yamaguchi complained._

_“Because I don’t feel like it.” As if that were a sufficient enough reason to end the conversation, Kei turned in his seat to face the laptop that sat on his desk. But of course, Yamaguchi wouldn’t leave it there._

_“Tsukki, you have to come!”_

_“No, I don’t. We’re not in high school anymore, and we can do what we want. Just because we’re gay doesn’t mean we’re required to attend every single LGBT Pride meeting. You can if you want, if you really want to become a regular member so bad, but I’d rather just go when I feel like it. Which isn’t tonight.”_

_“I’m not gay.”_

_Kei sighed. “I know.”_

_Yamaguchi came up behind him and leaned down next to his ear. “Aren’t you worried about what people will think? If I show up without my tall, handsome boyfriend, they’ll think I’m free for the taking.” One of his hands slid down Kei’s neck, towards his chest._

_Kei immediately pushed his hand away. “Shut up, Yamaguchi,” he muttered. His words reminded him of the expressions on the other members’ faces when they went to the first Pride meeting the previous week. He’d seen them all watching Yamaguchi, smiling at his kind nature and his pretty face. And then, when they’d looked at Kei, he had seen the resentment in their eyes. They didn’t think someone like him deserved to be with someone like Yamaguchi. And Yamaguchi expected him to go back and mingle with those strangers. “They won’t think you’re single if you don’t give them the wrong impression.”_

_“Tsukki!” He swatted him lightly on the shoulder, but his tone was angry. “I don’t like what you’re implying!”_

_“And I don’t like what you’re implying.” Kei countered, and turned around to face Yamaguchi. “I’m not so jealous or whatever that I’m afraid to let you go out on your own.”_

_“It’s not that.” Yamaguchi frowned at him. “It’s just … it’s our first year at college, and I want us to do things together. Is that so wrong?”_

_“No,” Kei replied slowly. “It’s not wrong for you to want that. But you can’t expect me to do whatever you want to do, whether I want to do it or not. That wouldn’t be fair.”_

_“I know, but you have to meet me halfway, Tsukki! I always do things with you that you wanna do! I just want you to return the favor every now and then! That’s how good relationships work!”_

_Kei stood up. “Why are you trying to force me to do something I don’t want to do?” He was already sick of this conversation. Sick of the hidden threats, the manipulation._

_“It’s not—”_

_“You know what? Just get out of here. Go to your stupid club.”_

_Yamaguchi’s eyes widened with rage, and he turned around and left the room._

_Kei sighed with relief and sat back down. He was glad that was over. There were some good shows on tv that night, but he had to finish his homework first. He didn’t understand why it was so hard for his boyfriend to just let him relax on his own. He hoped Yamaguchi would apologize soon for yelling at him, so that they could go back to normal._

* * *

Minutes, then hours, were lost to his own tears. He found himself lying on his back on the floor. His neck and back ached, and his head felt swollen. His face was puffy and sticky. The overhead light burned streaks across his blurry vision.

He was disgusted with himself.

He still couldn’t help feeling like he didn’t deserve what Yamaguchi had done to him. That denial was his gut reaction to his own grief. Even the realization that he was a shitty person couldn’t stop him from longing for Yamaguchi’s touch, for his love. And so his next realization that his selfishness was so deeply ingrained—so automatic, so inescapable—just made him hate himself more.

It took a long time to build up enough willpower to get off the floor. When he was finally able to stand up, his whole body felt cramped and tight. Maybe it would be good to go for a walk. First, he went to his closet and grabbed a clean washcloth. Then he went to the bathroom and washed his face. He ignored the other boys passing in and out of the bathroom and stared at himself in the mirror. His eyes were still red and a little puffy behind his glasses, but he doubted anyone would notice. Even when he was only wearing his neutral expression, people tended to leave him alone. As if he was too unlikable to even look at twice.

He needed a distraction.

Back in his room, he got redressed. He switched the sweatpants for a clean pair of jeans and ditched the childish dinosaur t-shirt in favor of a black-and-white striped short-sleeved shirt that was hanging in his closet. He spared another glance at himself in the full-length mirror that hung on the back of the door. He didn’t even look like a gay man, or a college student, or someone who liked to eat too much strawberry shortcake while watching poorly-made horror films. He just looked like … a person who had made too many mistakes, over and over again. So stupid.

He left his bag on his chair. He just needed his wallet, phone, and headphones. There was nothing he particularly wanted to listen to, so as he left the dorm, he put the headphones over his ears just to muffle the noise of the outside world.

He started heading towards the entertainment district that lay just on the edge of the historical downtown area. It was a series of businesses that spanned only a couple of blocks, but included restaurants, tattoo shops, dance clubs, and the best ice cream parlor Kei had ever been to. All of these businesses were designed to lure in college kids, and they did so with ridiculous ease. Kei knew it would be crowded on a Saturday night, but he was beyond caring about who he might run into. He planned on ignoring anyone who approached him, anyway.

He took his time getting there, walking the uneven sidewalks of the residential areas that surrounded the university. When he and Yamaguchi were freshmen, they’d spent much of their free time exploring these side streets, excited to finally be living away from their hometown. Now, he could wander through any of the nearby neighborhoods without getting lost. It was still bright out, and he could hear children playing in backyards and smell meat cooking. It must have been dinnertime for most people.

He walked through a small park surrounded by old, stately homes. He remembered messing around here a couple times last year with Yamaguchi and a few other friends. He wondered if he could consider any of them his friends now. He’d been happy to hang out with them, but they’d gotten along with Yamaguchi better than they had with him. Now that they were broken up, they’d all have to pick sides now, right? He thought of the messages Hinata had sent him a few days ago. Reaching out to Kei, concerned for him. But he hadn’t gotten any texts from him today. He’d been there yesterday, after all, he’d seen how Kei had treated Yamaguchi. Even Hinata, who communicated easily with anyone, probably wanted nothing to do with him now. There were a handful of people in his major that he’d hung out with separately from Yamaguchi, but that had just been a few study sessions. Even he knew that study buddies were not the same as real friends.

 _Friendless._ Ha, that was just the icing on the cake, wasn’t it? Maybe if he had any friends here, he’d have someone to talk to, and he’d have more of an idea of what to do with himself. Maybe he wouldn’t be heading out by himself on a Saturday night to distract himself.

He waited at a stop sign while two cars blasting aggressive music sped past. Then his feet took him onward. Even though thinking of those _what-ifs_ made him feel worse, he couldn’t seem to stop. His mind kept reaching, reaching for a different pain than the one he was experiencing at the moment. As if dwelling on one pathetic aspect of his life would make all the others go away. He’d always thought of himself as smart, but now he knew that definitely wasn’t the case.

By the time he made it out of the residential areas onto Central Avenue, he was only a few blocks away from the entertainment district. He’d managed to turn what was normally a twenty-minute walk into a forty-five-minute one, but it was for the best. His limbs felt less cramped and he’d worked up a light film of sweat over his skin. Normally he avoided unnecessary physical exertion, but the feeling of his blood tingling in his extremities was a welcome distraction.

It was just after seven o’clock when Kei arrived at Encounters, the club he’d been to with Yamaguchi a few weeks ago. Since it was so early, there was no line at the door. He hoped to be able to get a seat at the bar while it was relatively empty, and wouldn’t have to fight for space. When it got busy, he was fairly confident that he could keep people from sitting next to him. However, there was a man guarding the door. It wasn’t the same bouncer that Yamaguchi had flirted with, which threw Kei a little bit, but he strode forward confidently all the same.

The new bouncer shifted his weight in front of the door and threw out a muscular arm. “ID please,” he demanded in a voice that was far too loud.

Kei put on a mildly surprised face that wasn’t completely disingenuine. He calmly pulled out his wallet and flipped through it, making sure to keep its contents hidden from the keen golden eyes of the bouncer. He hardly ever got carded, due to his height and his quickly-growing facial hair. He’d thought it was a good thing that he hadn’t shaved that day, but apparently that didn’t matter when coming across a bouncer that was too enthusiastic about his job. He frowned worriedly at his wallet, as if noticing something was missing, then looked back at the bouncer. The guy’s hair looked absolutely ridiculous, black at the roots and the tips bleached to an almost silver color, all spiked up and away from his head. He was incredibly fit, though, and Kei considered himself intimidated. “Ah, sorry.” He put on an apologetic smile and scratched the back of his neck, hoping his relaxed posture would make him seem like less of a threat. “I must have left it behind.”

Such tricks didn’t work on this bouncer. He grinned up at Kei and put his hands on his hips, his legs spread wide as if Kei would try to go around him if he didn’t block the door completely. “You’d better go find it, then.” He sounded like he was really proud of himself, though his golden eyes almost seemed to challenge Kei. “You can’t get in here without an ID.”

“Ah.” He felt himself deflate, though he wasn’t sure why he cared about getting into that particular club. He turned back the way he came, as if he was actually going to go home to get his ID—though why keep up the pretense?—but before he’d turned completely, he thought he saw the bouncer’s cocky grin morph into a frown. He put his headphones back on and kept walking.

He would have to keep trying until he found a place that would serve him alcohol. It was the only thing he could think of that would make him forget about all this, even if it was just for a little while. He couldn’t just go to a liquor store. There was no good place to drink on the campus grounds without getting busted, and he definitely didn’t want to drink in his dorm room. As he walked, he pulled out his phone and looked up bars in the area. He scrolled through the list until he found a group of four bars that were all within a few blocks of each other, though they were on the other side of town. The first one in the group he looked at seemed like a dive bar, based on the photos and reviews, but he thought that sort of dingy place might suit him better tonight anyway.

He redirected himself to the nearest bus stop, feeling confident that at least one out of those four bars would let him in. It was a full year until he turned twenty-one, so he just had to try his luck. A dive bar that didn’t receive a lot of college students was more likely to forego checking IDs anyway. He tossed his wallet lightly from hand to hand as he waited for the next bus that would take him to the north side of town. The sun was hidden behind the trees now, making the streaky clouds shine gold against a backdrop of saturated pale blue.

When the bus finally came, he got on and found a seat in the middle where no one else was sitting. He didn’t have a bus pass, since he rarely needed to go anywhere far from campus, so he had to shell out a few dollars. He was running low on cash now, but his debit card still had a few hundred dollars on it, so he’d be okay. He picked some music to play on his headphones and stared out the window attentively, keeping an eye out for his stop.

The bus inched through the heavy traffic on Central. When they passed the edge of the college campus, Kei’s guts started twisting up inside him. He shut his eyes until the all-too familiar buildings were out of sight. He didn’t have a good grasp on what exactly he was doing. It wasn’t like going out and drinking by himself sounded like _fun_. It probably wasn’t even smart. His mother would smack him if she heard he’d gone out without letting anyone know where he was. If something horrible happened to him, no one would be able to help him.

_Yamaguchi said he still cares about you. Text him and tell him what you’re doing and where you are._

Kei frowned at his lap. That was a stupid idea. If he talked to Yamaguchi, he would try to have a _conversation_ with him, and he’d probably try to get him to come home.

_Home._

He scrunched his eyes shut as a sharp pain stabbed his chest.

 _I just want to forget. I have to forget._ He took a deep breath and returned his gaze to the window. _I can’t go back there right now._

By the time he reached his stop, twilight had deepened. He stepped off the bus onto a street corner right next to a gas station. There didn’t seem to be many pedestrians in this part of town, but there was a large group of high schoolers leaning against the faded white wall of the convenience store. Kei turned and made for the long strip of shops that was just a block east of Central. He looked down at his phone to make sure he was in the right place, then made his way across the mostly empty parking lot. There was a Mexican restaurant that had several cars parked next to it, but every other store in the strip mall seemed to be closed for the night. The bar all the way at the end had only two cars in front of it. Kei’s mouth twisted in uncertainty, but he walked in and hung his headphones around his neck.

Most of the bar was dimly lit, but there were colorful Tiffany-style lamps hanging over the bar. Classic rock played softly. Kei scanned the room briefly, noting the three men sitting in a booth in the corner next to the pool table. Other than that, there seemed to be no one around. He stuck to his plan and sat down on the stool that was at the far end of the bar, away from the door.

He nibbled on his bottom lip as he waited, trying to keep his face calm. _Remember, this is all your fault,_ he told himself. _You made him do it. You were awful, and you made him leave you._ He chewed his lip harder, just stopping himself from drawing blood. The negative thoughts were painful, but he couldn’t turn them off. Because he knew he was right, and it felt right to berate himself, after believing he was a good person for so long. _I was so blind. I thought that because I loved him, I was good for him. I thought I was good enough._

After a few long minutes, a tall, thin woman appeared from the back room carrying a small plastic tub full of sliced lemons. “Sorry for the wait,” she said insincerely after glancing at him. “What can I get you?”

“Two shots of Maker’s Mark,” he said without hesitation. “And a glass of water.”

She grunted in affirmation while opening cabinet doors and running the tap in the sink for some purpose Kei couldn’t figure out. When she finally got around to pouring his drinks, he felt like he had aged two years.

“Eight dollars.” She set the two shots down in front of him.

He pulled out his debit card. “I’ll start a tab.”

She took it and set it down next to the cash register. Then she seemed to remember the water he’d asked for. “You boys need anything?” she yelled at the customers in the booth as she gave Kei his water, and he flinched.

As she got back to work doing whatever it was that bartenders did when they didn’t have drinks to make, he downed his first shot. The whiskey burned his throat and his nose, and he reached for his water glass. When he’d washed the taste of whiskey out of his mouth, he filled it with whiskey again. The second shot burned, but it satisfied a thirst deep inside of him, a thirst that water could not assuage. Not that it was completely satisfied. He had only just begun.

When he ordered another whiskey, this time mixed with coke, Yamaguchi’s smiling face was still haunting him. Happy without him. He stared into the brown bubbly depths of his glass, ignoring the ruckus around him when the door opened and a few more people entered the bar. He didn’t like who he was, yet he wanted to be alone. It seemed a bit silly now that he had a few drinks in him. Hopeless. Maybe that was the part that was silly, but he couldn’t bring himself to laugh.

 _I have to be alone right now. Being around other people just makes everything hurt worse._ He knew he was being a coward. He knew he was running away, but… _Yamaguchi wants to be friends. And I don’t know how to do that._

He straightened in his seat and looked up at the colorful lights. The warmth of the whiskey was starting to ease the tension in his neck and the pain in his head. _Akiteru’s drink of choice. I think I understand why._ But it had yet to soothe his inner turmoil. _If I have to drink until I’m sick, just so I can forget how shitty I am, just for a little while … then so be it._

He sucked down the last of his drink and waited for a chance to flag down the bartender. It was 8:30, and he heard the door opening again. He made sure to stare straight ahead at the shelves of liquor on the wall. He didn’t think this was the sort of place he’d be approached by strangers, but he made his posture as uninviting as possible, just to be safe.

The bartender came back to the bar carrying a tray full of empty glasses. She leveled him a brief glance. “One more?” she asked briskly.

 _More like five more_ , he wanted to say, but nodded. He sipped at his water while he watched her measure the shots of whiskey into a new glass, then top it off with coke. He hadn’t decided yet if the liquor was a punishment or an indulgence. He just knew he needed it.

He would have time to figure out the important stuff tomorrow. The tv above the bar was playing ESPN and the chatter from the tables behind him buzzed in and out of his ears in pleasant waves. He had stopped worrying about what time it was. _Maybe it’s finally working._ His bottom lip throbbed, though he had long stopped chewing on it. His face felt warm, too.

“How long have you been sitting here by yourself?”

The voice came from right next to Kei, and it was slightly familiar. He couldn’t help turning to look at the man who had sat down two stools away from him. He had black hair that was mussed up in the back and hung loosely in the front over his right eye. He sat angled toward Kei, with one arm resting on the bar, and he had a playful look in his eyes. Kei could tell from his build that there was power hiding behind his lazy posture.

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” he responded, narrowing his eyes. He definitely looked familiar.

“Oho?” The stranger swirled the ice around in his tall glass of murky pink liquid. “So you’ve got an attitude to go with that look on your face.”

Kei didn’t even want to bother trying to figure out what “that look” was supposed to be, exactly. He didn’t feel threatened by this man, but he was a little uncomfortable with him barging in on his personal space like this. He wondered what he had done, despite his best efforts, to send across the message that he wanted someone to talk to him. He was about to ask the stranger about it—maybe he could help him from making the same mistake in the future—but instead, he found himself asking, “Don’t you work at Encounters?”

The man’s grin slid into place as if he’d been barely holding it back. “Oh, you’ve been there? I wouldn’t have guessed that to be your scene, glasses boy.”

Kei’s nose wrinkled at the unsolicited nickname, and bent his head down to take a drink. “Just once.”

“Hmm, so not your scene, then. A lot of college kids come in for a few short dances before hitting up the next club on the strip. How old are you, anyway?”

“Twenty-two,” he replied evenly. He knew that blurting out an automatic “twenty-one” was a novice mistake. He didn’t think this guy would report him if he knew how young he was, but there was no point taking risks.

“Me too! Hey, do you actually go to college? Maybe we’ve had a class together and I never noticed—”

“Why are you drinking here?” He seemed a little young for the job, but he was definitely the bartender Yamaguchi had caught him checking out. “I’d think you could get discounted drinks at your place of employment.”

He sipped his drink from a long straw. “They make the drinks strong and cheap here. I’m guessing that’s why you’re here, too.”

“Something like that,” Kei muttered, and turned back to his own drink. He tried to formulate a plan to make this man go away, but all the ideas in his head were floating away from each other instead of clicking into place.

The stranger (kind of?) leaned more heavily on the bar, his mess of black hair sliding into Kei’s periphery. “Why else would you come here? So far from campus? All alone?”

He huffed out an annoyed breath at the man’s suggestive tone. “Don’t joke about creepy stuff like that. I don’t even know you.”

“That’s true, I haven’t even introduced myself. I’m Kuroo. Kuroo Tetsurou.”

Kei frowned, poking at the ice in his glass with his straw. It was almost time for another drink. He was starting to feel really relaxed, and he wanted _more_ , more of that feeling. He didn’t really care, but he couldn’t help asking, “Why are you here by yourself?”

“Ah, well…” Kuroo hesitated as he gathered his thoughts. “I guess most of my friends are too young to go to bars. The ones that do like to drink have to go to frat parties to get their kicks. I guess after four years of college, I don’t get in the mood for those kinds of parties very often.” He chuckled low and soft, drawing Kei’s gaze to him unwittingly. “I must be getting too mature to find any appeal in freshman girls grinding on me, or trying to make out with me right after throwing up. I do have a few friends who are old enough to drink. Most of them like to drink in the comfort of their own apartments, though. I guess that’s part of growing old.”

Kei snorted.

“I bartend every Thursday and Friday night though, so it’s nice to go out and have someone make drinks for _me_ , just to switch things up. When my drinking buddy isn’t working, he usually comes with me. He works at Encounters, too. You might have met him, he usually works the front door on really busy nights.”

Instead of the bouncer that Yamaguchi had flirted with, Kei’s mind immediately went to the bouncer he had encountered that night. “Does he have weird hair? Way too loud? Kind of … built?”

Kuroo laughed out loud. It was a really mirthful sound, and kind of nice to hear. “Yeah, that’s Bokuto. He wants to be the best at everything he does, even if it’s just a part-time bouncing gig at a trashy college dance club.”

“I noticed,” Kei muttered, still a little resentful at being turned away from Encounters.

Kuroo smiled at him. “It’s not fair that you’ve already met one of my friends, glasses boy. He didn’t mention me, did he?”

“No, of course not,” he murmured, leaning away from him. “He was working.” He caught the eye of the bartender across the room, and he beckoned her over with a lazy wave of his fingers. He almost found himself sliding into an imitation of Kuroo’s pose, but even though leaning against the sticky bar with one arm looked comfortable, he was still sober enough to realize how pathetic that would look. He was still trying to think of a way to ditch this guy, after all.

After the bartender came and refilled their drinks, Kei stopped remembering why he wanted Kuroo to go away in the first place. He was a distraction. That was what he wanted, wasn’t it? He’d lost track of how many drinks he’d had, though he hadn’t been counting anyway. He hadn’t thought about Yamaguchi at all in the last five minutes, at least, though a voice in the back of his mind reminded him that his ex-boyfriend wasn’t what he’d come here to forget. His shame and self-hatred were still there, but…

“So what’s your major?”

“Computer science.” Kei pretended to watch the rerun of some tennis game that was playing on tv, but his eyes kept sliding to the man on his left before he could stop himself.

“That’s interesting.” Kuroo’s smile widened slightly. Kei had noticed that his face was very expressive. “I have a friend in that program, too. Do you know Akaashi Keiji?”

“Hmm…” Kei thought about it. A man with steely eyes and short, dark curls came to mind. “He’s a junior. And a tutor.”

“Well, if you’re a senior, you could be a tutor, too.” Kei flushed in embarrassment at the position his lie had placed him in. “I bet you know a lot.”

“Not really.” He felt like he was barely contributing to the conversation, only offering dead-end answers to Kuroo’s questions, but he still wouldn’t leave him alone. Why was he still talking to him? Well, he had just explained to him why he was at a bar by himself, but why had he chosen to talk to _Kei_? Why hadn’t he been put off by Kei’s rudeness? Maybe he was looking for someone to take home for the night. He found himself surprised by that sudden idea—even though he had noticed the predatory look in Kuroo’s eyes—and cleared his throat. “What’s your major, then?”

“Biochemistry.”

Kei’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

Kuroo must have noticed. “No, really! I’ll admit, I’m an idiot in many ways, but that kind of thing just—” he snapped his fingers, “—clicks for me.”

“Hm.” He could kind of understand what he meant. Computer engineering was definitely a pain, but when he discovered the language of HTML, and the satisfaction of a program falling into place after hours of patching together codes with painstaking accuracy, he had known that a career in computer science was his only option. “The coursework for that major is insane. My roommate—” because he couldn’t say _boyfriend_ , and he couldn’t say _friend_ , “—was really good at chemistry in high school, but he went for a sociology degree because the courses were easier.”

“Easier for him, maybe.” Kei realized that Kuroo’s voice was really nice to listen to. It was low and throaty; confident, but not too loud. His voice was open and vulnerable, but a touch sardonic, and the combination commanded Kei to listen. “Social sciences are hard for me to grasp, because, well … there’s no way to quantify human behavior, is there?”

“Hmm, maybe.” Kei sunk lower in his seat. “What you do is less abstract, at least.”

“Yeah, you get it! Probably because you’re a science nerd, too. Me and Bokuto were arguing about whether or not computer science was a hard science or a soft science, which I thought would be an open and shut case, but he tried to argue that…”

Kei’s eyes drifted between open and half-shut as the flow of Kuroo’s voice washed over him. He sucked down the last of his drink and then chanced a look at Kuroo. His lips twitched upwards occasionally while he talked, revealing sharp, white teeth. It took him a few minutes to realize he was staring. Shit, if he was being pulled in by both his voice and his face, it really wasn’t good…

“Uh—hey…” Kuroo blinked up at him as Kei suddenly stood up.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” he tried to say in the most dignified way possible, but it came out as a mumble.

He made his way across the bar, swaying slightly, and fumbled his way into the single-stall men’s room. He locked the door behind him then braced his palms against the sink. He looked at himself in the mirror and he still didn’t like who he saw. He looked at his flushed skin, his day-old stubble, his heavy-lidded eyes. He wasn’t even shit-faced, just a little tipsy, and he was already checking out another man. _Yamaguchi was right about me. He was right to break up_ —

He bared his teeth at himself, not allowing that thought to complete itself. He could beat himself up all he wanted, but it still wouldn’t make Yamaguchi want to be with him. The opposite was true. Building himself up as some virtuous hero wouldn’t accomplish anything, either. He glared at himself in the mirror and pushed a thumb against the glass, right next to his face but not touching. _I think I finally see myself as I am. It took Yamaguchi leaving me for me to break through my own delusions._ And that was okay. It sucked, and it hurt like hell, but Kei thought it might be okay.

He stepped over to the urinal, unbuttoning his jeans. It wasn’t like he had feelings for Kuroo. He was just very charismatic. And good looking. And most importantly, he was a distraction. Whatever this was, it was better than lying on his floor crying. He took a long piss, and he wasn’t sure if he even liked talking to Kuroo, or if the alcohol was making him like it. But he was past the point of refusing more alcohol, and if drinking more meant talking to Kuroo more, then he was okay with it.

Kei made his way back to his stool, eyes wandering over the other patrons, then looking at Kuroo as he made the final approach. He got up onto his stool and faced Kuroo. “What’s this?” he asked, staring at Kuroo instead of the two tall shot glasses next to them on the bar.

Kuroo wore a shit-eating grin. “UV Cake. You looked like you could use something sweet.”

 _Don’t accept drinks from strangers who may or may not be flirting with you,_ seemed like common sense. Kei grabbed the shot glass and held it out towards Kuroo, because fuck it.

Kuroo’s dark eyebrows raised, making his grin look less sinister, and they clinked their glasses together before downing the vodka in sync. Kei tilted his head back and opened his throat, swallowing the vodka easily. He didn’t taste it until a moment later, humming at the combination of vanilla birthday cake flavor and the sterile burn of vodka.

“You like that?”

Kei raised a single eyebrow, trying to hide his blush by wiping the back of his hand across his lips. Oh, he’d made a noise, hadn’t he? Well, it had tasted good. He turned back towards the wall, where he could keep an eye on Kuroo with just a tilt of his head to the left. “Yeah. Thanks.”

Kuroo took a gulp of the fruity-looking cocktail he was still working on, and released a loud sigh. “You know, since I bought you a shot, you could thank me by telling me your name.”

“Oh?” The alcohol wasn’t enough to remove the edge from his voice completely. “I don’t see why I should. I don’t make a habit out of coming to bars like this. I’m only here tonight because…” His voice trailed off as he became unsure of what excuse to offer. He was only here because he was too young to get into classier bars? He was only here because he was trying to drown his sorrows?

“...Because?” Kuroo’s grin had disappeared. His head was tilted as he eyed Kei curiously.

Kei stumbled over his lapse in judgement, and ended up looking at the perforated rubber mats lining the other side of the counter. “It’s a large campus. We probably won’t ever see each other again.”

“Oh.”

Kei tried to ignore the disappointment in Kuroo’s voice. He wished the bartender would come back to make him another drink soon. His mouth still tasted like vanilla, and he was out of water. Well, he’d said what needed to be said. He didn’t want Kuroo thinking that he wanted to hang out, or that he was an easy lay. Just the thought of rebounding from Yamaguchi so quickly made him feel nauseated.

The low chuckle to his left startled him. “You’re more stubborn than most people, aren’t you?”

Kuroo’s voice dripped with exasperated amusement, but Kei had to peek at the man’s crooked grin just to confirm. It seemed that Kuroo got over disappointment quickly. “I don’t think so,” Kei replied, looking down at his hands. He’d never thought of himself as particularly stubborn. “I’m just not in the mood to follow the rules of social decorum tonight.”

“Oh, so you’re saying you’re not normally like this? When you follow the _rules_ , do you actually have a filter for the things that come out of your mouth?”

Kei wrinkled his nose. He wasn’t sure what image of him Kuroo was constructing in his head. “I don’t know what you’re st-talking about. I always think before I speak. Do you?” He turned to face Kuroo as the bartender slid another whiskey and coke across the bar to him.

“I try.” Kuroo’s eyes narrowed in on Kei’s face, but his tone was completely playful when he asked, “Are you saying that you come off like an asshole intentionally?”

He reached for his drink and took a sip to hide his surprise. He had thought his demeanor had mellowed out since his angsty high school days. At least, it had been a long time since someone had called him an asshole to his face. But Yamaguchi leaving him had proved that he hadn’t really changed in the last four years, at least not in a good way. “Well, yeah,” he admitted. “Usually it prevents strangers from talking to me longer than necessary. You must be attracted to assholes or something.”

A guffaw burst from Kuroo’s mouth, really loud and uncontrolled. “Not really! I swear!” He pushed his bangs out of his face, only for them to drop back down in front of one eye. “Well, at least you’re a self-aware asshole.”

“You’re trying to claim that you’re _not_ attracted to me, then?” Kei felt a smirk slide into place, feeling like he’d finally gained the upper hand in this conversation when Kuroo’s smile slipped, just for a moment.

“Ah, well…” Kuroo’s head twisted to the side as he ran a hand through his hair again. Kei watched the lines on his neck wobble as he swallowed. People got nervous when confronted directly, and Kuroo was no different. But then he turned to Kei and offered him the gentlest smile he’d seen all night. “It never hurts to be nice to pretty boys, does it, blondie?”

Kei sucked down three large gulps of his drink. He wasn’t sure if the drinks were getting weaker or if he was just getting used to the taste. _Pretty_. People called Yamaguchi pretty, but never him. He frowned at Kuroo. “You can’t—ugh, you have to pick one.”

“One what?” Kuroo prodded, and Kei felt like the tables had turned on him again. There was something about Kuroo’s piercing stare that felt dangerous.

Kei looked down at Kuroo’s feet. He wore black mid-calf combat boots over his red skinny jeans. Well, that was distracting, but probably not in a good way. “Glasses or blondie,” he mumbled. “Pick one.”

“Hmm, maybe I’ll come up with something else to call you. Like your real name.” He paused, then nudged Kei with his boot. Kei jolted, realizing it was the first time he touched him. “Hey. Like I said, you’re pretty, but personality matters a lot, too. If I had come in here looking for a quick fuck, I would have ruled you out a long time ago.”

“Gee, thanks,” he muttered, though he found Kuroo’s honesty refreshing. “S’not like you’re meeting me on one of my best nights, you know.” He wasn’t trying to defend his personality—he just thought it was something worth pointing out.

“Well, let’s see…” Kuroo drained his glass and sighed. “You’re blunt and rude because you think it will keep people away. Even if that tactic didn’t work on me, you could have pulled out your phone or walked away from me at any time. You didn’t. You’re at a bar far away from campus, yet you’re talking to me, which leads me to believe you’re not trying to avoid people in general, but a specific person. I figured all that out, yet how do you expect me to excuse your sour personality when I have no prior experiences with you to compare it to?”

Even though Kuroo’s voice was playful, Kei couldn’t help shrinking away from his scrutinizing gaze. He didn’t come here for this. He didn’t come here to be taunted and criticized and _analyzed_ . Kuroo didn’t _know_ that he was a horrible person, he had only noticed that Kei was a little blunt, but … it was hard to hear. His fingers twitched as he considered the headphones around his neck.

There was a low chuckle. “I’m sorry. I’m getting tipsy, and … I just had to know what face you’d make if I said that. Don’t be mad.”

He didn’t really sound sorry. Kei sighed through his nose. “So you’re saying you’re not normally like this? When you’re sober you’re actually not an asshole?” He glanced at Kuroo to see his shocked expression at having his words turned back around on him.

“Well… There’s one way for you to find out what I’m like when I’m sober.”

Kei sighed again and looked at his phone. It was 10:12. He had to leave soon if he wanted to catch the last bus. He had to pay before he could leave, though. He turned around and looked at all eight of the customers in the bar. Where did this bartender keep disappearing to?

“You could give me your number.”

Kei pushed up his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, more out of annoyance than anything else. The alcohol had dispelled his headache long ago. “Why the hell would I give you my number when I don’t even want to give you my name?”

“Hmm, I don’t really _need_ your name, though. I could put you in my phone as glasses boy.”

“Nice try,” Kei smirked. He polished off his whiskey and coke and found the courage to look at Kuroo again. “Why do you want my number, anyway? I thought you said you already ruled me out for a quick fuck.” If his tone came across as bitter, it was an accident.

Kei was shocked by how quickly Kuroo’s face could become serious. “You think that’s all I’m after? I decided to keep talking to you tonight because I thought there might be some substance behind that oh-so-salty façade.” His hand slid toward Kei along the top of the bar, but stopped short of actually entering his personal space. “Maybe I don’t think you’re one-night-stand material, but I think that actually might make you more interesting.” His eyes flashed, then he pulled his hand back. “Besides, it can get pretty boring at the bar without Bokuto around. I could use a new drinking buddy.”

Kuroo wasn’t making any sense. First he’d called Kei blunt, rude, and sour, and now he was using words like _substance_ and _interesting_. _There’s nothing interesting about a selfish person like me,_ he thought. He chuckled despite himself. “If I didn’t know I would disappoint you, maybe I’d actually give you my number, Kuroo.”

“What do you mean?” Kuroo frowned. “I already know you’re a jerk, what could be more disappointing than that?”

The bartender reappeared, giving Kei the chance to reevaluate the very stupid thing he’d just said. He flagged her down. “I’m ready to pay. Add one more of these to my tab, then swipe my card. Please,” he added for Kuroo’s benefit.

A minute later, his debit card had been returned to him, and his last drink sat in front of him. He downed half his drink, then picked up the pen and debated how much of a tip he should add on.

“Oh, do you have somewhere to be in the morning?”

“Mmm, no,” Kei hummed absently. He’d thought of a way to redirect the conversation away from his more personal disappointments. “I have work, but not until the afternoon.”

“Where do you work?”

“It’s just a work study job at the library. Ten hours a week. I’ve gotta get going to catch the bus, though.”

“Oh no.” Kuroo’s face fell dramatically. “I forgot was going to offer to give you a ride home.”

Kei snorted. “And you actually thought I would agree to that? I’m sorry, I stand corrected—you’re not an asshole when you’re drunk, you’re just an idiot.”

“Hey, I told you straight up that I’m an idiot, if you recall,” Kuroo said defensively. “I only claimed to be smart when it came to science. Besides, you’re way more drunk than me.”

“Nuh-uh,” Kei denied firmly, though if he had been paying attention, he would have said that he had had three times the drinks as Kuroo.

Kuroo chuckled at him. “Oh yeah, weren’t you going to give me your number? Oh, no, because you said you’d be disappointing. What the hell’s that about? You don’t have a high opinion of yourself?”

 _If only you knew._ He figured now was as good a time as any to confess to him, if only to get him off his back. He tipped his glass back and gulped down the rest of his drink, ice clinking against his teeth. He hadn’t had as much to drink as he’d planned on, but he’d had enough that he’d probably be able to sleep tonight. He burped softly into his hand then turned to Kuroo. “Can you keep a secret?”

Kuroo’s eyes shone as he nodded eagerly.

Kei stood up and stepped over to Kuroo, his soft, black hair tickling Kei’s nose as he leaned in close to his ear. “I lied earlier,” he murmured. “I’m turning twenty next week.”

He stepped back and smiled. Standing up had made him a little dizzy, and Kuroo’s eyes were wide, fixed on him. “So, sorry, but I don’t think I’d be a good drinking buddy for you.”

He turned and stumbled away. Walking was harder than it usually was. He’d almost made it to the door when a hand grabbed him by the shoulder. “Wait. A-are you going to be okay?”

“The bus stop’s just down the street,” Kei muttered, then looked over his shoulder at Kuroo. He squinted hard, trying to decipher the look of what seemed to be sincere concern in his eyes. Was it because he was just a teenager, because he was having a hard time walking straight? Or was it because Kei’s façade was failing him? It was possible he’d let some of his pain show at some point during the night, but Kuroo didn’t seem like the type to offer pity to strangers.

 _Strangers._ Was that what they were? If so, why did the thought make his chest tight?

“Tsukishima,” he forced the syllables out. Kuroo blinked at him. “That’s my name.”

He tugged out of Kuroo’s grasp, pushed the door open, and went out into the night. The rising moon was brighter than any of the streetlights. He didn’t look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you think I put enough cameos in this chapter?  
> I can't wait to write more Kuroo. The banter is so much fun.  
> Next chapter we get to hang out with Akiteru a little bit.  
> As always, thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More angsting and some brotherly fun!

Kei didn’t think about Kuroo the next day.

He spent his Sunday morning huddled in his bed, nursing a hangover and trying to ignore Yamaguchi. As his roommate shuffled around their room, Kei curled up with the blankets over his head, pretending to be asleep. His head was pounding so hard that he almost considered asking Yamaguchi for mercy, but asking his ex-boyfriend for some Tylenol and a wet cloth to place over his head would be too troublesome. He still couldn’t talk to him. He didn’t want to see if he was sad or happy living without Kei’s love.

Yep, he was still a coward.

When Yamaguchi left, Kei crept out of bed to down some painkillers, then went right back under his blankets. He spent the next few hours dozing and trying to ignore the nausea that made his throat burn, until it was time for him to go to work.

On Monday, he went to classes, then work again. He didn’t think about Kuroo until he went to the computer lab during lab hours and saw Akaashi Keiji. He wondered if Kuroo had asked Akaashi about him, or if he was upset that Kei had lied to him about how old he was. Akaashi was quiet and stayed in his lab assistant’s chair, only looking up from his own work when students approached him with questions that he answered easily. Kei didn’t stay in the lab long. It was hard to concentrate.

On Tuesday, he skipped all of his classes and stayed in bed. It had been one week since Yamaguchi had broken up with him. He didn’t want to hide, and he didn’t want to cry into his pillow, but it all still felt unreal. He’d lost his best friend, his biggest supporter, and he didn’t even feel worthy enough to fight to get him back. There was no one for him to turn to, and he wished he could just get drunk again.

On Wednesday, he felt a little less like his life had ended. When Hinata texted him asking him to join him for lunch, though, he ignored him. He thought that maybe the only person he would be able to deal with would be Kuroo, just because he didn’t know about his miserable situation and wouldn’t treat him any differently.

On Thursday, the reality of his situation had sunken in. Akiteru was coming to visit on Friday, so he needed to talk to Yamaguchi. In the past, when his brother had come to visit, Kei had slept with Yamaguchi so his brother could take his bed. Kei was fine with sleeping on the floor this time, but he realized he needed to actually tell his roommate that they were going to be having a guest.

That night, he came back to the dorm earlier than usual, and found Yamaguchi reading in bed. He seemed perfectly happy to ignore Kei, until he set his bag down on the chair and said, “Hey.”

“Oh—Tsukki—” Yamaguchi put his book down and sat up, fidgeting nervously in his bed.

“Sorry,” Kei breathed out.  _ Sorry for interrupting your reading, sorry for suddenly deciding to talk to you after a week of silence, sorry for pushing you away, sorry for making you unhappy…  _ “Um, how-how have you been?”

Yamaguchi looked down into his lap and let out a nervous chuckle. “Uh, not that great, actually… But I … I know I don’t have any right to complain to you. Sorry.” His brown eyes peeked up at Kei. “How have … how have  _ you  _ been?”

“Mmm,” Kei grunted, and sat down on his bed. He’d never been able to open up to Yamaguchi when they were dating, not when it mattered, so it was too late to start trying now. Better to get straight to business. “Well, Akiteru’s visiting this weekend. He’ll be here tomorrow after class until Sunday morning.”

“Oh, well, I can see if Shouyou wants to have a sleepover—”

“No, no, I don’t wanna kick you out or anything.”

“It’s okay!” Yamaguchi’s eyes shone with emotion. “I bet you two have a lot of catching up to do, so I’ll get out of your way.”

“Mmkay. Only if you want to.” That was the end of that conversation, so he took his shoes off and chucked them on the floor. He grabbed his headphones and lay down on top of his comforter, fully prepared to ignore Yamaguchi, since he was so clearly uncomfortable.

“Tsukki.”

He looked over to see Yamaguchi still sitting there, staring at him. “Huh?”

“Well… I wanted to let you know that you can always join us for lunch. You don’t even have to talk to anyone, but … you shouldn’t have to be alone.”

Kei’s heartbeat thudded in the silence. He sat up in one swift motion and stared at Yamaguchi in disbelief.  _ Alone.  _ Coming from him, it was too much. “So … what, are you trying to say that I don’t have any friends?” he bit out.

“No, I—” Yamaguchi flinched back as Kei moved suddenly. “Wh-where are you going?”

“I’m going for a walk!” he barked, rushing out of the room with only his phone and headphones.

He practically ran downstairs, but once he got outside he quickly slowed to a shuffle. Anger and shame coursed through his veins but he simply didn’t have the energy for it anymore. He was sick of it. He wandered aimlessly down the dark street, scrolling through all the social media apps on his phone that he had only signed up for after Yamaguchi’s ceaseless urging. He looked through photos posted by people that he wanted nothing to do with, and probably wanted nothing to do with him. His life would go on, but who was he supposed to spend it with? 

_ What am I without him? _

God. That really sucked. That feeling that walloped him in the chest and threatened to paralyze him completely. He had to keep walking, he just  _ had to _ , or else he would become completely lost. He couldn’t even begin to answer his own question, even though he knew, he knew now what he was. But he didn’t even have any energy left to fling any sort of coherent insult at himself. 

He could recall Kuroo’s words perfectly:  _ “I decided to keep talking to you tonight because I thought there might be some substance behind that oh-so-salty façade.”  _

But there was no substance. All Kuroo would have to do would be to ask Yamaguchi, who had stuck around for four years, and still decided that there was nothing worthy behind Kei’s facade that made all of his bitching worth it. He must have tricked Kuroo somehow into thinking he was interesting. He hadn’t stuck around to see the disappointment that must have come over Kuroo’s face at finding out Kei had lied about his age, so he couldn’t imagine what Kuroo’s eyes would look like when he found out that Kei really was a horrible person, little more than a waste of space and effort. He didn’t want to imagine it.

He only wanted to imagine Kuroo’s eyes the way they had been. Lively and intelligent and curious. Completely open to a new experience that Kei had ruined with lies.

He wandered around his corner of the campus until he gave way to exhaustion and sat down on a bench. He didn’t want to spend the rest of the night feeling like shit, but he’d done this to himself. He should have just texted Yamaguchi about his brother instead of opening himself up to a conversation that he should have known would just end up in him getting upset. He sucked in a shaky breath then, after a long pause, exhaled. He’d yelled at Yamaguchi. All he’d done was try to be kind to him and he’d yelled at him. After all the experiences they’d had together, Kei couldn’t even be civil to him. Maybe he should file a request for a room change, instead of waiting until the end of the semester, like he’d planned. Such requests were rarely granted except in extreme cases, but it might be worth a shot. 

He couldn’t live with Yamaguchi if he was going to keep treating him horribly. Maybe if there was some chance that Yamaguchi would change his mind and take him back…

No. There was no reason for him to.

Maybe Yamaguchi wasn’t completely happy without him. But breaking up with Kei must have taken a lot of courage, so it was probably something he was pretty certain about. He must be feeling a lot of complicated emotions. Even if he said he wasn’t doing that great, Kei had only seen him unhappy when he was talking to him. When he’d seen him at a distance, playing with his friends, he’d seemed truly happy.

_ He probably does feel guilty, the stupid, kind idiot. I haven’t exactly been hiding how shitty I feel. _

So it seemed like even after breaking up with Kei, Yamaguchi still couldn’t be happy if he was around. But he wasn’t sure how long they could go on ignoring each other.

He would just have to try harder. If he could just be courteous to Yamaguchi, then maybe Yamaguchi wouldn’t have to spend so much energy resenting him, and then he could focus on … whatever it was that would make him happy.

If there was something that would make Kei happy, then that was even more impossible to comprehend.

* * *

Kei stretched his arms above him as he leaned against the wall of his dorm. It was fucking  _ hot _ , even here in the shade—he could feel the heat of the sun reflecting off the asphalt of the parking lot. Even though it was almost October, the weather showed no indication of changing. His light denim button-down was tied around his waist, leaving him in just a white tank top. As he stretched his long arms, he caught sight of a piece of lint stuck in his armpit hair. He pulled it out with a soft click of his tongue.

He hated sweating, but he hated waiting more. Akiteru was late, and Kei was more than a little hungry.

He’d avoided the cafeteria all day. He’d munched on a little bit of wasabi snack mix between classes, but he was definitely looking forward to dinner now. Akiteru definitely should have been there by now. He resisted the urge to text him, because he knew how he hated being bothered while he was driving. 

Seven minutes later, Akiteru pulled into the parking lot in his old gray Toyota. He had his windows rolled down, and he turned down the volume of the loud rock music he was playing as Kei approached the passenger door. Kei plopped down in his seat. The inside of Akiteru’s car smelled a little smoky, it was messy, and it was  _ hot _ .

“Did I just see you smell your own armpit?” Kei’s brother smiled, though his honey-brown eyes were wide in mock disbelief.

“Whatever,” Kei chuckled, pulling the seatbelt over his chest. “Everyone does it. Turn on the AC, it’s hotter than Satan’s taint.”

Akiteru snorted. “Okay, princess.” He turned on the coldest blast of air possible, and rolled up the windows. The car stood still. “Where’s Tadashi?”

“He’s not coming.” There really wasn’t much to say, but he wanted to put off the conversation for a little while longer. “Let’s go, I’m starving.”

“Where to?” Akiteru smiled as he turned around in the parking lot and got them back on the street. “Olive Garden?” he asked, trying to get a rise out of Kei.

Kei rarely responded to his brother’s teasing. “We’re getting sushi,” he responded evenly. “I’ll tell you which turns to take.”

“Okay!” Akiteru cheered. “Sushi for the birthday boy!”

“My birthday’s tomorrow,” he corrected automatically.

“Mhmm,” Akiteru hummed happily. “And I bet you’ll be just as cute as a twenty-year-old.”

Kei snorted in disgust. He was many things, but he was definitely not cute. His brother still saw him as a little kid. “Turn left at the light up here.”

They spent the fifteen-minute drive talking about dumb stuff. Akiteru complained about his annoying coworker who constantly made meme references, and Kei told him about his calculus professor whose hands shook during lectures and always smelled like piss. Akiteru smiled a lot and patted Kei on the shoulder and ruffled his hair. Kei was glad to see him, and he normally tolerated his brother’s touchy-feely habits, but today he couldn’t help shrinking away from his touch. Akiteru definitely noticed, and when he stopped trying to touch Kei altogether, Kei’s heart sunk into his stomach. Their conversation remained unchanged on the surface, though, and Akiteru smiled straight ahead at the road.

Kei didn’t understand how Akiteru always kept that smile on his face.

When they got to the restaurant, Kei pulled on his shirt and buttoned it up while they were crossing the parking lot. There were plenty of tables open inside, and they were led to a small booth in the corner. The host left them with their menus, and they settled in across from each other.

“I want bubble tea,” Kei said, flipping quickly to the drinks page.

“You can have that for dessert,” Akiteru responded. “There’s definitely enough sugar in it for it to be considered one. I’ll order us a pot of hot tea.”

“You lunatic, it’s like ninety degrees outside.”

“Mmm, but green tea will be nice with sushi. It’s supposed to stimulate your appetite.”

There was no point arguing. His brother could order whatever he wanted. And Kei would probably end up drinking a cup or two if they were going to get the whole pot.

By the time their server came to get their drink orders, they were ready to order their meals as well. She wrote down everything quickly, and Akiteru watched her sleek, black ponytail bounce as she left the table.

“So is Tadashi still making you avoid red meat? Is that why we came here?”

Kei scowled at the glass of water the server had brought them. “No, it’s just been awhile since I’ve had sushi. Besides, I like this place.” He looked around at the tall bamboo plants lining the brick wall, interspersed with different bronze statues. He’d been here once before, but not with Akiteru.

“How is he, anyway?”

“Huh?” Kei asked absently.

“Tadashi. How is he?”

He clenched his hands together on top of the table. Akiteru was looking at him, but he kept staring at the tiny bubbles clustered around the ice cubes in his water glass. “He broke up with me.”

“What?!”

He flinched at his brother’s shout.

“Are you serious?” Akiteru lowered the volume of his voice, but not the intensity. “Kei… Shit, are you—are you  _ okay _ ?”

Kei huffed out an annoyed breath. “Of course not. What a stupid fucking question.” He finally looked up at his brother. He looked completely devastated.

“When did this happen?”

“Last week.”

“Why didn’t you  _ tell  _ me? You know I would have driven out here for you.”

“Exactly,” Kei muttered and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. If he didn’t stop his eyebrows from pinching together, he would get another headache. “I was really looking forward to hanging out with you on my birthday,” he explained evenly. “If you’d come here last week, then you would have wasted a sick day, and money, and then you probably wouldn’t have been able to come today.”

“Kei… Don’t tell me you’ve been dealing with this alone.”

“Well,” he said bitterly, “all of my friends are really his friends, and I get the feeling they approve of his decision.” Then he added for Akiteru’s benefit, “Hinata’s been nice to me, though.”

“Well, that’s good.” Akiteru crossed his arms, still frowning at Kei. “You should have talked to mom, though. You know she worries about you.”

“I don’t want to give her more reason to worry about me.”

“She’s going to find out eventually, though.” Akiteru let out a long sigh. “So … so why did he—”

“I don’t wanna talk about it anymore.” He looked up and saw the server returning with their drinks. Akiteru backed off and smiled at the server, thanking her. It was all Kei could do to smooth out his expression. She explained that the tea needed around five minutes to steep, and that she’d be back with their food soon, then left.

Akiteru’s lips quickly morphed back into a frown as he looked at Kei again. “You don’t wanna talk about it anymore,” he repeated flatly. He was clearly wavering between bullying the details out of Kei or being sympathetic.

“That’s what I said.” He poked his ice cubes with his straw. If Akiteru really needed the details of the breakup, then he would get them when Kei wouldn’t have to worry about getting upset in public. “Come on, I just wanna have a nice dinner with my brother. Don’t you have any new stories about your crazy new-age neighbors or something?”

“Keeeeei,” Akiteru groaned, and pushed his fingers up his face into his short, honey-blonde hair. “I’m your big brother. You’re supposed to rely on me at least a little bit once in a while.”

Kei said nothing. He didn’t think it was possible to make Akiteru understand how he felt.

* * *

_ Kei had been walking home from school when he got the call from Yamaguchi. _

_ He heard his phone tinkling out the melody of one of his favorite songs and sighed. He pulled the phone out of his coat pocket, subjecting his fingers to the cold February wind that was currently assaulting his face. He answered the call with a simple, “Yeah.” _

_ “When were you going to tell me?!” Anger made Yamaguchi’s voice shrill, and Kei winced. _

_ “Tell you what?” _

_ “That you’re going to Southern State! Why did I have to hear about it from some random dude in seventh period?” _

_ “Well…” Kei’s shoes crunched against the ice on the sidewalk as he kept moving. He hadn’t wanted to have this conversation like this. “I haven’t really decided. There’s a few applications I haven’t heard back from yet. But I’ve been thinking lately that I really wanna go to Southern.” _

_ “Why? You got acceptance letters from three Ivy League schools! Three!” _

_ “Can’t we talk about this later?” _

_ “No! We’re going to fucking talk about this now! This is a big decision, and you can’t just keep avoiding it!” _

_ Kei blinked against the wind. He thought he might understand the reason Yamaguchi was so mad, and it was definitely cute that he only ever got mad for Kei’s sake, but he was starting to get a little upset. “I don’t even wanna go to an Ivy League school. My mom made me send those applications. You know that.” _

_ “B-but have you really thought about what kind of an opportunity it would be to go to a school like that? Have you even considered it?” _

_ “Well, yeah. I’ve actually thought about it a lot,” Kei said defensively. _

_ “Obviously not enough! There’s literally no reason for you to go to Southern!” _

_ “Of course there is!” Kei snapped. “That’s where you’re going to college, so that’s where I’m going, too!” _

_ If he thought that that would end the argument and bring Yamaguchi to his side, then he’d been mistaken. “What the hell! I mean, what the literal hell, Tsukki!” If anything, he sounded even more upset. “You can’t fucking do that!” _

_ “Why not? I want to spend my four years of college with you. What’s wrong with that?” _

_ “Th-they don’t even have a great computer program, you said so yourself! There are hundreds of other schools out there that would be better for you! Tsukki, you’re so fucking smart, and your future is so bright… You can’t—you can’t give all that up just for me!” _

_ Kei frowned as he turned onto the street his house was on. “Just for you? What the hell does that mean? You don’t think you’re good enough for me?” He didn’t give Yamaguchi the chance to answer the question. He didn’t want to even consider it. “Tadashi, I want to be with you. I’ve imagined my future, ok? I could spend the next four years at a top-tier school, or I could spend them with you. Honestly, I’d rather go to community college. I don’t think campus life is really my thing. But I know that if I’m with you, then I can do anything. So … so there’s really only one choice for me.” _

_ “Shit.” Yamaguchi startled Kei by letting out a little sniffle. Was he crying? “I mean … I mean, we could try a long distance relationship…” _

_ “I don’t want to do that,” Kei said firmly. _

_ There was a pause, then Yamaguchi huffed out a soft, “Yeah.” It seemed like he was calming down. “We’ve been together for so long, it would be really hard to only see you on breaks.” _

_ He waited to make sure Yamaguchi didn’t have anything else to say, then said, “Like I said, there are a few applications I’m still waiting on. But … I haven’t figured out how I’m going to tell my mom.” He hadn’t wanted Yamaguchi to find out like this, and if his mother’s reaction was going to be anything like his, then that was a conversation he really wasn’t looking forward to. _

_ “I don’t know,” Yamaguchi sighed. “Of course … of course I’m happy about it. I want to be with you more than anything. But…” _

_ “But it’s my decision to make.” _

* * *

The rest of the dinner went well, even though Akiteru’s smile was faker than ever. Kei was grateful for his brother’s ability to smile despite his concern. Even though he knew it was pretend, it put him at ease. Kei loosened up enough that he was able to tell his brother about the time Nishinoya Yuu had made a giant papier-mache version of the dean’s head, about the size of one of those oversized beach balls. Tanaka had been helping him carry it up the steps to the Pride clubroom, for some demonstrative purpose, when their grip on it slipped. Nishinoya had tried to catch it, but ended up punching his fist right through the side of the head, where it got stuck.

“So, it’s the first meeting of the semester, right?” Kei explains to Akiteru, who is already chuckling. “The room is packed—there’s about twenty freshman crammed in there with the rest of us. Tanaka bursts into the room with Nishinoya dragging the huge head behind him. Nishinoya climbs up onto Tanaka’s shoulders and hoists that thing up into the air, even though it must have weighed a ton. So they’re parading the head around the room, and everyone’s cheering, because those two could get people to get hyped up about anything, and suddenly—it was inevitable, really—the head falls.”

“Oh my god.” Akiteru covered his mouth, tears of mirth already springing from the corners of his eyes.

“And of course it all went to hell from there. Nishinoya jumps down and starts wailing over the destruction of his creation, someone starts shouting about rioting against the administration, and Oikawa’s trying to explain to the freshmen that no, this wasn’t planned, and there will be no riot. There was a lot of yelling, and eventually everyone calmed down, but of course someone recorded the whole thing and sent the video to the dean.”

“Oh no!” Akiteru squeaked, his shoulders shaking.

“So that’s how Nishinoya got sentenced probation for the whole semester. He can’t go to the official meetings, but he still sneaks in to events outside of the clubroom. Oikawa and the other officers were so pissed, but of course everyone’s been talking about making Nishinoya president next year.”

“ _ Yes, _ ” Akiteru enthused, his giggles subsiding. “I support this fully. Nishinoya for president 2019!”

Kei snorted. “Well, he’s definitely got enough passion for it, but he’s not as much of a planner as Oikawa is. There are others that would be better for the job.” He thought of bratty but loyal Futakuchi, or maybe the ever-calm Shirabu. He’d been to enough club meetings to have a good idea of most of the regular members’ strengths and weaknesses, but it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t be around to vote for the new officers in April. He had no reason to go back to that club. At least he had collected a few funny stories to share.

There was a lull in the conversation as Kei put the next piece of sashimi in his mouth. Akiteru poured himself another cup of tea and stared forlornly at his empty plate. Kei continued taking his slow, measured bites. He was the one who had barely eaten all day, but he had never understood the appeal in gulping down his food the way his brother did.

Then Akiteru said, “I’m glad to see you eating.” Kei shot a questioning look at Akiteru, who smiled at him gently. “You look like you’ve lost a little weight.” He leaned across the table and poked Kei in the cheek with one of his chopsticks.

Kei pushed himself as far back into the booth as he could go. “Don’t touch me like that. We’re in  _ public _ . You’re so gross.”

“Oh, I’m gross, am I?” Akiteru wiggled his eyebrows and made a show of running his tongue slowly around his lips.

“The grossest,” Kei confirmed.

“Whatever, I’ve gotten more pussy than you have.”

“And I’ve gotten more  _ ass  _ than you have.”

“Oh, now who’s the gross one?”

“You started it. You said pussy first,” Kei deadpanned.

When their server came around to collect their dessert order, it took a full minute for Kei to stop laughing, and even then, Akiteru had to speak for him. “He’ll have a strawberry bubble tea.”

Kei lifted up a hand as he gasped for breath. “No. Make—make it mango.”

“Aw,” Akiteru pouted as their server trotted away. “I thought strawberry was your favorite flavor. You made me look like a bad brother.”

“It  _ is  _ my favorite,” Kei reassured him. “I’m just in the mood for something different.”

Their server dropped the bill off at their table at the same time as Kei’s “dessert.” Kei grabbed for his drink at the same time that Akiteru grabbed for the bill. “Hey!” he protested, and nearly choked on one of the tapioca balls.

“You didn’t seriously think I was going to let you pay for your birthday dinner, did you?” Akiteru waved the bill in the air in an admonishing gesture, far out of Kei’s reach.

“I said I’d pay,” Kei grumbled, but quickly gave up the argument when he saw Akiteru pull out his credit card. He glared at him as he sucked down his sugary drink, though.

When the bill was paid, Akiteru stood up. “Let’s get going.”

Kei got up reluctantly. He was still working on his tea, but it had been delivered to him in a disposable cup, so he took it with him. He trailed his brother out of the restaurant, wincing when the evening sun struck his eyes. He almost felt content, but the feeling was soured by the knowledge that his mood could drop at any moment. It was inevitable. But he didn’t really deserve to be unhappy forever, did he? Even someone like him, who had neglected and hurt the person he loved most, was allowed to find comfort in his brother’s presence, right? It wasn’t solace—Akiteru couldn’t give him what he needed, after all. But being with him felt a little bit like being home.

Akiteru started up the car and rolled the window down halfway. He lit a cigarette and exhaled the smoke with a contented sigh. “We going back to your dorm, then?”

Kei’s nose twitched at the smell of his brother’s smoke, and reached forward to turn on the AC. Even with one window down, it was still very hot inside the car. He absently rubbed at his knuckles as he thought about what to do. The scabs had fallen off a few days previously, but the skin was tender, the bruises still healing. 

“Can we … just drive around for a bit?”

The sun haloed around Akiteru’s head and bounced in streaks off of the reflective surface of Kei’s glasses. He gripped his cup, cool and slick with condensation, and for a brief moment he felt like a child again. Then the smoke curled in front of Akiteru’s face, and the feeling disappeared. Akiteru no longer looked like their father, and Kei felt older again.

“Sure,” Akiteru agreed with an eye-crinkling smile.

The car pulled out of the parking lot. Akiteru put the radio on low as he concentrated on driving and his smile drifted off his face. It was just like old times. As soon as Akiteru had learned how to drive, he would take Kei in their mom’s car and drive around, trying to get lost. Sometimes it was just the two of them, and sometimes Kei was crammed in the backseat between Akiteru’s classmates. Even though he was just Akiteru’s kid brother, he was always welcomed, probably because of how quiet he was. Sometimes the car rides were quiet, and sometimes his ears were assaulted with loud music and shrieking laughter. Sometimes Akiteru’s friends drank beer in the backseat, or harder liquor, and sometimes they shared with Kei. Even as a teenager, when he wanted to be alone more often than not, he would jump at the chance to go on a car ride with Akiteru. Sometimes they would actually get lost. Before GPS and smartphones, it was actually a little scary to get lost, especially in the parts of town they ended up in. But Kei always felt safe—he always trusted Akiteru, even when his hands shook and his eyes grew distant and they nearly drove off the road.

Akiteru had never hurt Kei. He could say with certainty that he was the only person that never would.

As Kei finished his bubble tea, Akiteru tossed his cigarette out the window. “So. I’ve got beers in the trunk. Do you wanna find somewhere to drink them out here, or do you wanna wait until we get back to the dorm?”

“I don’t care,” Kei said. “Yamaguchi’s gonna clear out for the night, so it’ll probably be okay to drink there.”

“Well, don’t sound too excited,” Akiteru chuckled.

The silence hung heavy in the car. Kei felt something welling up inside of him, a need for something undefinable. He wished he could be more open, but how could he express himself when he didn’t even know what he was feeling? He wished he could tell Akiteru everything, about how he snuck into a bar to drown his sorrows, about Kuroo, about how stupid he was. He didn’t know how to start such a conversation, and he didn’t know what good it would accomplish. But if anyone understood Kei’s reticence, it was Akiteru. He always put on a smile for others, and hated to burden anyone with his own problems.

As they drove past the train tracks, through one of the quiet residential areas of this small college town, Kei slowly began to speak.

“I…”

He hated that he didn’t know what he was supposed to say. He didn’t know what his brother wanted to hear. He looked out the window at the untidy mid-century houses.

“I … I’m sorry.”

Akiteru didn’t say anything, didn’t look away from the road. He just listened.

“I know I’m not always the most fun to be around… But you never push me away, and I always look forward to hanging out with you. I just … I wish I could offer you more. I mean, I’m in  _ college _ , for fuck’s sake, and I should be taking you to cool parties, or introducing you to all my friends, but… I mean, you drove all this way to see me, and I’m just boring, and I’m  _ moping _ , and… I’m sorry.”

“Kei,” Akiteru reminded him lightly, “you already know I like you the way you are. And your mood, well … it’s not exactly your fault, is it?”

He looked at his hands. It was his fault, though. “He told me he’d been unhappy for a long time. He broke up with me because he thinks there’s someone better out there for him. I was holding him back, or keeping him down, or something, and…” His voice shook as he let out what he’d been thinking for so long. “It just sucks, because I know I could have done more. If I hadn’t taken him for granted, if I’d actually treated him like he was special, then maybe he could have been happy. I feel like the four years we were dating were just a waste. It would have been better if he’d never met me, probably…”

“Okay, that’s enough.” Akiteru’s voice was calm, and he stared straight ahead. He took a deep breath and said, “First of all, you’re not responsible for anyone’s happiness but your own. Tadashi could have tried to work things out with you, but instead he chose to end it. His happiness is his own responsibility, so that’s on him. You have to focus on your own happiness—”

“But how?” Kei said desperately. “All I want is for things to go back to the way they were before, but that’s not gonna happen!”

“Sometimes the thing you want isn’t the thing that will make you happy.” He chuckled. “God, I hate to say cheesy shit like that, but it’s true. So you’re not happy with what you have right now. So? So you keep looking. That’s all you need to do.”

“That’s it?” Kei asked skeptically.

“Yep!” Akiteru chirped, and smiled at him. “I don’t want my cute, smart little brother to mope around forever.”

Kei looked out the window. He didn’t know if he felt much better but Akiteru was trying. He was trying for him. 

“Also…” Akiteru’s eyes were serious again. “Tadashi was lucky to have met you. Don’t say that your time together was a waste.”

There was no evidence that that was true, but… He stared out at the shadows that the setting sun cast, and thought about what his brother said. “I’m sorry,” he said again, and shut his eyes. “Sorry I didn’t tell you about all of this sooner.”

Akiteru didn’t say anything. He put his hand on Kei’s shoulder and rubbed gentle circles in his back. This time, Kei didn’t shy away from his touch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't talk about your feelings, Tsukki. It's weird.
> 
> Thanks for reading!  
> If you've made it this far, then you deserve the yummy smut that is on the way. Next chapter, I promise! This ain't no slow burn fic. I don't have the patience for that.
> 
> Heheh, Akiteru wants to be the cool big bro, but he's just a big dork.


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kei gets desperate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWO MONTHS? Gomen, Tsukki!  
> Well, in honor of Tsukki's birthday, I decided to kick my rear into gear and actually finish this chapter. (It's still the 27th where I'm at, so it counts.)   
> I’m throwing a lot of things at you in this chapter. There are good things that happen for bad reasons, and also just bad things that happen. I’m sorry.  
> There are a few parts that were very hard to write, so I’m assuming they’ll be hard to read.   
> *angsting intensifies*  
> Also I had to add the dubcon tag for this chapter, because once again, alcohol is involved. Don’t be like Tsukki, kids. Don’t try to fix your problems with booze.  
> Enjoy!

Kei found that being twenty was not much different from being nineteen. He may have no longer been a teenager, technically, but he was still too young to drink legally. The biggest impact of his birthday was the realization that he was entering his third decade of life without Yamaguchi at his side.

On Monday, he made an appointment with his academic advisor for the next day. It was embarrassing, but maybe if he explained his situation to them, they could help him get a room transfer by putting in a good word for him at the residential office. He didn’t think it was a decision that Akiteru would have approved of, but it was the best way to dispel Yamaguchi’s delusion that they could ever be friends again.

Then he asked Hinata out to lunch, because that was definitely a decision that Akiteru  _ would  _ have approved of.

Of course, he hadn’t been expecting him to agree instantly. He’d figured Hinata would tell him he already had plans, and maybe they could get lunch tomorrow or Wednesday. Hinata wasn’t popular in the same way that Oikawa Tooru was popular, but he had a lot of friends. Kei couldn’t help but wonder how many friends Hinata was standing up by meeting with him, which made him suspicious. 

But Kei waited outside the cafeteria doors, ignoring the hordes of strangers and classmates that passed by, until Hinata’s unmistakable orange hair appeared in front of him. He seemed happy to see him. They swiped their meal cards together, made their way through the buffet line together, and sat at a small table together, Hinata yammering away all the while.

When they met freshman year, Kei had thought Hinata was the absolute worst. Too loud, too excitable, too earnest, and  _ nosy.  _ He was always jumping around which made him the worst possible person to live next to Kei—and to make things worse, his bed shared the same wall as Kei’s. Hinata was always shouting in excitement about something or other late at night, bouncing who-knew-what off the walls, knocking things over, and generally making a ruckus. Yamaguchi, who of course had also agreed that Hinata was annoying, refused to swap beds with him, which led to Kei hogging Yamaguchi’s bed most of the time, forcing him to squeeze in with him on the tiny twin-sized mattress. Finally, their mutual annoyance led to the two of them starting a prank war with Hinata and his roommate, Haiba, who was only slightly less obnoxious than Hinata himself.

Kei was eventually shown Hinata’s humility and good sense of humor. Two things that Kageyama Tobio did not possess.

“So where’s your boyfriend?” Kei asked Hinata before digging into his salad.

“You didn’t invite him, so… I’m not sure, but I think he’s eating lunch with Kindaichi and Kunimi.” Hinata bounced his knee up and down as his eyes wandered over his tray of food, as if trying to decide what to start eating first.

Kei chewed and swallowed his bite of salad. “The guys he went to high school with? Doesn’t he hate them?”

“Nah, they get along okay now. They have a lot of hobbies in common, I think. Well, maybe they still hate each other a little bit, but…” Hinata suddenly giggled. “It’s funny, because whenever they hang out I like to tease Tobio afterwards and accuse him of being in the KKK.”

Kei looked up. “What.”

“Because there’s three of them… And their last names all start with ‘K’...” Hinata trailed off and grinned hesitantly at Kei.

“You’re so stupid,” Kei snorted.

“Am not!” Hinata shot back. “You’re just no fun!”

“Then why did you agree to hang out with me?” he retorted.

“Well, because … you’re not a bad guy, and…” Hinata sputtered and flapped his arms, “...and because I want you to feel better, I guess…”

Kei bit back a snarky comment and took a bit of his lunch instead. There was no point questioning it further. Hinata was nothing if not stupidly honest. “You hung out with Yamaguchi over the weekend,” he stated.

“Yeah, it was fun,” he replied with a light laugh, completely unconcerned that Kei was bringing up his ex. “I’m good at cheering people up, I think!”

“Oh, well I’m in good hands, then,” Kei said mildly. The implication that Yamaguchi had needed cheering up didn’t go unnoticed. A confusing surge of anger and sadness rose up in him. Maybe if Yamaguchi had the decency to be happy by himself, Kei would be able to hate him instead of himself. He wanted Yamaguchi to be happy, but he wanted to be the one to comfort him.

“Whatcha thinking about?” Hinata stared at him.

Kei looked away. “Yamaguchi,” he mumbled.

“You’ve still got it pretty bad for him, huh…” Hinata looked thoughtful. “I think he’s been so sad lately because he misses you. You were dating for so long, and friends for even longer, and now you’re just nothing. He wants to be friends again, but I think he understands why you don’t want that. He feels bad for what he did to you.”

“But not enough to take me back.”

“I dunno,” Hinata sighed. “Tobio’s so much better at giving advice than me.”

Kei found that hard to believe.

“He just goes like this—” Hinata made an intense frowny face, “and then he says something inspirational, like, ‘Just do what you need to do,’ and then I feel better.”

Kei laughed at Hinata’s spot-on impression of Kageyama’s voice. “Only an idiot like you would get any kind of inspiration out of such idiotic advice.”

Hinata stuck his tongue out at him. “You’re just jealous.”

When Kei’s laughter died down, they finished their lunch in silence. The things Hinata had said made sense, even if Yamaguchi hadn’t told him those things outright. He trusted Hinata’s judgement when it came to reading people’s emotions. He wasn’t exactly happy about what he’d said—Yamaguchi’s remorse did him no good. But at least he was less confused about what Yamaguchi was feeling and how he’d been acting.

“Thanks,” Kei told Hinata as they stood up to put away their dishes, “for what you told me about Yamaguchi. It’s good to hear how he’s doing, since I’m … I’m too scared to talk to him myself.”

“No problem!” Hinata told him with a sunny smile.

Kei admitted to himself that Hinata actually was pretty good at cheering people up.

* * *

Unfortunately, the rest of the week didn’t allow him to stay cheered up for long.

His meeting with his advisor didn’t go well at all. His advisor was a professor in the computer science department, who specialized in advising sophomores and juniors and keeping them on track for graduation. Kei explained to him that he was dating his roommate, but they had broken up and now he didn’t think they could continue living together. He made sure to heavily imply that his grades were going to suffer if he couldn’t get a room transfer.

Of course, what he got in return was a lengthy lecture, telling him that he shouldn’t have roomed with someone he was dating in the first place, as these sorts of falling-outs were inevitable. He was told that mid-semester room changes were only approved for extreme cases, and that he would have to resolve his issues with his roommate in a mature way that befitted a university student.

Kei bit his tongue throughout the whole spiel. He hadn’t known this particular professor could be so long-winded. When the stern admonishment finally came to an end, Kei nodded. “Yes, I understand. Would you help me fill out the form anyway, just in case they have time to consider my situation?”

The advisor grumbled. “Let’s get this over with now, then.”

Kei had already picked up the transfer form and filled out the easy parts, like his personal information. Despite his advisor’s reluctant attitude, he helped Kei fill out everything else with the best possible wording. It didn’t take very long, and when his advisor signed his name at the bottom, Kei thanked him and turned to leave.

But his advisor had one more piece of advice for him. “You know, if this doesn’t work out, you can always get an apartment off campus.”

Kei was momentarily shocked by how unhelpful that was. He regained his composure and nodded. “Thank you for your time.”

He opened the door to leave the office, and nearly ran into someone who had been about to knock on the door. It was Akaashi Keiji.

“Ah, excuse me,” Akaashi murmured. His voice was a smooth tenor, and it felt like Kei’s heart rate dropped immediately upon hearing it. Akaashi stepped to the side, allowing Kei to exit the office.

Kei made his way down the hall, stealing a glance behind him to see Akaashi disappearing inside his advisor’s office. Of course, seeing Akaashi made him think of Kuroo. He thought of Kuroo’s challenging eyes, his hand on his shoulder, and his voice when he called Kei pretty. He couldn’t remember Kuroo’s voice in perfect detail, but he could remember how it made him feel. He thought of that heat in his gut, spreading through his whole body, dark and sweet as if tainted by smoke. He wanted that feeling again. He wanted Kuroo’s lips on his neck, his words whispered straight into his ear. 

He tugged on the collar of his shirt and kept walking. Kuroo had been a wonderful distraction. It made sense that he wanted more. Akiteru had urged him to keep looking for something that he wanted—if he kept looking, maybe he would find something that made him happy. Kei wasn’t stupid enough to believe that Kuroo would be the one to make him happy, but the more he thought about Kuroo, the more he started to think that maybe entering a rebound relationship wasn’t completely unreasonable.

But Kuroo probably wanted nothing to do with him.

Why would he want anything to do with someone like him? He’d only had one sexual partner, so his inexperience was almost at the level of a virgin. Not to mention the things that Kuroo had already pointed out, that he was a cold, blunt asshole, and he wasn’t even old enough to drink legally. Kuroo was too attractive. He was so out of his league, he’d probably laugh in Kei’s face if he ever saw him again.

His situation almost felt hopeless, if it weren’t for the small chance that his room transfer would get approved. If he could get some distance from Yamaguchi, maybe he could figure out what to do with himself.

* * *

On Wednesday, Hinata invited him to lunch. This time, he arrived with a small blonde girl in tow. The same quiet girl who always seemed to pop up unannounced all over campus. He found out her name was Yachi, and that she was an art major. Kei was sure he’d been introduced to her before, but he promised to himself that he would remember her name this time, even though there was nothing particularly remarkable about her. Her style was rather unobtrusive for an art major. Her hair seemed to be its natural color, and she had no visible tattoos or piercings except for one shiny stud in each ear.

So Kei endured a half hour of small talk and listening to Hinata and Yachi get excited over the most trivial gossip. He picked at his pasta and remembered how Yamaguchi had tried to invite him to lunch. Maybe he’d told Hinata to try to get Kei to hang out with more people. If that was true, at least he’d been smart enough to keep his own distance. Hanging out with Yamaguchi’s friends was tolerable, but he still wasn’t ready to be in Yamaguchi’s company and pretend that everything was normal.

Yachi got excited when Hinata told her that Kei was a computer science major.

“Oh really? Um, actually I have this project I’m doing on Adobe Illustrator, and I can’t quite get it to—”

“Coding is my specialty,” Kei cut her off flatly. “I have very little experience with Adobe programs.”

“Oh, um…” Yachi flinched away at his tone, and her gaze landed shakily somewhere around the area of his chest. “Well… Maybe you know someone who could help? I’m getting by okay for now, but since it’s a project for my midterm final, I really want it to stand out more, so I think with just a little extra tutoring…”

Tutoring made Kei think of Akaashi. And of course, like some sort of Pavlovian-conditioned response, Kuroo’s sly grin popped into his head. “You should see Akaashi Keiji,” Kei heard himself saying. “He’s a computer science tutor, but I’m pretty sure he’s minoring in graphic design.”

Yachi’s eyes widened, but she still looked hesitant. Kei caught the eye of Hinata, who was frowning at him and giving short, jerky nods.

“And … I guess I could introduce you to him? He works as a lab assistant in one of the computer labs on Monday and Friday. We could go and ask him if he has time to help you…”

Yachi was nodding with uncontainable excitement. “Oh, thank you! Thank you! You’re so nice, Tsukishima!”

Kei frowned down at his lunch. “It’s the least I can do.” He knew that doing the bare minimum to help someone shouldn’t have felt like such a burden. Hinata’s smile of approval did absolutely nothing to make him feel better about himself.

* * *

On Thursday, he got a reply from the residential office.

He was in his room when it happened. Yamaguchi was gone at the weekly Pride meeting, and Kei was sitting in bed with his laptop, clicking through a never-ending chain of funny animal videos. It was around 8:30 when he decided he should be doing something productive. Midterm exams started next Friday, and he wasn’t nearly as prepared for them as he should have been. Before doing anything about that, though, he checked his email.

His heart jolted when he saw that he had a message from the residential office in his inbox, sent to him five hours ago and titled, “RE: Dormitory Transfer Request.” He clicked it open and held his breath.

_ Dear Mr. Tsukishima Kei: I regret to inform you that your request for a transfer to a different dormitory room has been rejected at this time. It is not in our policy to approve such requests until term has ended, except in extreme cases or where emergencies arise. If domestic dysfunction continues, I urge you to consult your hall’s resident assistant (R.A.) or one of the certified campus counselors. If your problem is persistent, you can re-apply for a transfer after the 20th of November… _

Kei stopped reading. He  _ couldn’t _ read anymore, not if he wanted his laptop to stay in one piece. He shut it with too much force and closed his eyes. There was no way around it. There was just one hope that he’d been hanging onto, and it had just been destroyed. He was stuck with Yamaguchi for the rest of the semester. And he would have to continue to watch Yamaguchi be miserable around him,  _ because  _ of him.

No.

He couldn’t pretend that he wanted out only for Yamaguchi’s sake. It was killing him, this immense pressure to hide his feelings, to tough it out until he got over Yamaguchi, which was impossible when he was surrounded by constant reminders of what he had lost. This room was full of Yamaguchi, even when he was absent. The smell of Yamaguchi’s deodorant that lingered in the mornings, the sight of the stacks of manga Yamaguchi kept under his bed, even his dirty clothes draped over the back of his chair, they all taunted Kei and tortured him with memories.

He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t live like this. 

The light-up speakers on Yamaguchi’s desk were paired with a memory of  _ “...the best birthday present ever! Thanks, Tsukki!” _

Yamaguchi’s ugly plaid comforter was  _ tucked up under Yamaguchi’s chin, trembling as his fever shook his body, but his delirious brown eyes were asking Kei to stay with him, and Kei would stay until he was better, he would stay forever— _

—and the dark scuff on the floor from Yamaguchi’s sneakers when  _ Kei pushed Yamaguchi against the wall, and they gasped each other’s names, and the friction of hips colliding, and Kei’s hands in his hair— _

_ —and the man smiled as his fingers tugged cruelly, yanking on honey-blond hair— _

No, no,  _ no,  _ that memory had nothing to do with Yamaguchi, it didn’t belong here. Kei pulled his knees up to his chest, as if making himself smaller would make the memory go away, but of course it wouldn’t stop.

_ —there were tears on Akiteru’s face, and his whimpers were so small as the man clamped his large hand over his mouth— _

Kei gasped as his stomach hitched painfully.

_ —he stood at the doorway, peeking into the bedroom, drawn out of his own bed by the strange noises, and he wished he could make it stop, but what could he— _

Kei pressed a hand over his own mouth. He needed to calm down, he needed to breathe, but it was impossible to control his own body when these images were flashing through his mind. He didn’t want to  _ remember  _ this. He would rather be inflicted with every bittersweet memory of Yamaguchi than be reminded of  _ crying, and he didn’t know what was going on, why was he hurting his brother  _ and he felt so small, he was helpless, and everything was spiralling out of control, and he’d ruined everything—

The door creaked open, and suddenly Yamaguchi was standing over Kei’s bed. “Tsukki! What’s wrong?”

Yamaguchi’s face swam in and out of focus, warring in Kei’s vision against the vivid images of other faces from his memories. He was breathing hard, in and out through his nose, and his fingers were cold, almost numb.

Yamaguchi leaned in closer. “Tsukki?”

Kei didn’t trust himself to speak, couldn’t allow himself to take his hand off his mouth. Fear still raced through him, and he felt hot tears on his cheeks. He felt so humiliated, ashamed that Yamaguchi was seeing him like this. He felt so unstable, the whole world was uncertain, and if Yamaguchi got any closer to him, he didn’t know what he would do.

“You’re crying…”

Yamaguchi’s voice, so tender and laced with concern, filled Kei with anger. “I’m—”  _ fine,  _ he wanted to say, but what was the point in lying? He was hunched over in his bed with his heart laid bare for Yamaguchi to see, and it  _ hurt.  _ He felt cold and alone, and Yamaguchi couldn’t help him because he didn’t want him anymore.

He clenched his teeth together and lowered his shaking hand from his mouth. His memories were fading away, leaving him aching for comfort and love, even though he knew he didn’t deserve it. “Why did you do this to me?” was what he finally said.

Yamaguchi’s eyes widened in shock. Kei knew better than to blame him for everything, but he needed answers from  _ someone,  _ and Yamaguchi was the one who was here now.

“Why?” Kei repeated, the word creaking out from his tensed jaw. “Why don’t you love me anymore?” He tucked his chin between his knees, shrinking in on himself even though he wanted Yamaguchi to touch him and comfort him and give him what he  _ needed.  _ “It hurts so much, and I just don’t  _ understand _ …”

Yamaguchi just stared at him. 

So he kept talking. “I just want you back!” He knew he was being pathetic, but he didn’t know what he was supposed to do, and he hated himself  _ so much _ — “I need you, Tadashi… Even though you hurt me, and I know I hurt you, I still love you! You’re my whole world and I can’t .... I can’t do it without you!” He clutched at his hair. He felt like he was going crazy. He knew he should stop talking, he usually knew when to keep his mouth shut, but he couldn’t stop. “I want to be the one to make you happy! Just say you’ll take me back, say you still love me, and I promise I’ll do whatever you want, I’ll make you happy! Please!”

“Tsukki, stop! Just … stop it!” Yamaguchi’s voice shook, and even though he was hovering over Kei’s bed, he had never seemed so far away. “Just try to calm down, okay? You-you’re gonna be alright.”

Kei shook his head. “Please! I’m—I’m trying to tell you how I feel, f-for  _ once,  _ and you … you’re the only one who can help me!” He blinked up at Yamaguchi, and his eyes burned. He hated what he saw.

“No, Tsukki… I  _ can’t. _ ”

Kei’s chest heaved, and for a moment they just stared at each other.

Yamaguchi continued, “This— _ us— _ it just doesn’t work anymore.”

“God dammit!” Kei suddenly pushed to his feet, nearly knocking over Yamaguchi, who backed away fast. “What the hell is wrong with you? Are you saying that the last four years meant nothing? Nothing?! I  _ know  _ I took you for granted, I  _ know  _ I treated you like shit! You’ve made your fucking point, I’ve learned my lesson, now just let me try again!”

“No, no—”

“Are you seriously saying that after all we’ve been through, I don’t deserve a second chance? Do I really mean that little to you? You can’t just throw me away like trash!”

“Stop it!” Yamaguchi yelled back at him from the other side of the small room. “I’m not giving you another chance! I already gave you so many, but you never listened to me! You always had to have your way with everything!”

“That’s such bullshit!” A sob tore through the last syllable, and Kei tried to choke it down. “I know that you still love me! Why can’t you just tell me that you love me again?”

“Because I don’t! I don’t love you anymore!”

“Then tell me that you hate me!” Kei screamed. “If you don’t love me, then you can’t pretend that you still care about me, that you want us to be friends!”

“It’s … it’s not that black and white!”

“Tell me you hate me!” Kei repeated. His vision was tunneling, he couldn’t see anything but Yamaguchi, his chin lifted and his face scrunched up against Kei’s onslaught. He wasn’t looking away, but he refused to say the words that Kei needed to hear. Kei waited a moment, then took a step forward.

“Stop it!” Yamaguchi yelped. His chin trembled, then he turned his head to the side, looking down. Kei was enraged.  _ Don’t look away from me!  _ Yamaguchi’s breath shuddered. “Y-you’re  _ confusing  _ me… I … don’t…”

He crossed the distance between them swiftly. He felt like Yamaguchi was just toying with him, he had no right to be confused, not when Kei’s heart was on the line, so he grabbed Yamaguchi’s chin and kissed him. 

Kei closed his eyes, and for a moment, it felt right, because it was  _ Tadashi. _

Yamaguchi grunted in protest, and as Kei pressed his lips forward, all he felt was Yamaguchi’s teeth, clenched shut against him. Then Yamaguchi was twisting, jerking his head out of his grasp, and he pushed him back. The backs of Kei’s knees hit the edge of his bed, and he was sent sprawling back, bracing himself just in time so that his head didn’t hit the wall.

Kei opened his eyes and looked up at Yamaguchi. He didn’t look confused anymore. He looked  _ pissed.  _ Seeing that anger in his eyes directed at him made him feel like the lowest of the low.

Yamaguchi didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. With a tense jaw, he moved towards the door.

“Don’t,” Kei croaked. He got to his feet and grabbed his things off his desk. “I’ll go.” He couldn’t stay in here, not after everything.

He left the room before Yamaguchi could speak. His legs moved faster than his mind did, running on what felt like borrowed energy. He was still crying and he felt like throwing up. The dark campus was a nauseating blur around him. He’d fucked up. He’d fucked up bad.

But Yamaguchi had fucked him up, too. His best friend couldn’t even tell him that he loved him. He didn’t hate him, either. He knew he was a piece of shit, knew it even more keenly now, but knowing that he wasn’t worth Yamaguchi’s time anymore was what kept the tears rolling down his face.

Before he knew it, he was standing at a bus stop on Central Avenue. He hadn’t thought to grab his headphones, but he clenched his wallet in one hand, his phone in the other, and his keys sat snug in his pocket. His phone told him that it was close to ten o’clock, so he had just enough time to catch the last bus. He shoved the phone into his pocket. The thought of calling Akiteru or someone else didn’t even cross his mind.

His tears had dried by the time the bus came, but he was still a shaking mess. He handed over his fare without making eye contact with the driver or anyone else on the bus, then collapsed into the first seat, sniffling softly. He’d been so stupid to say those things with the hope that Yamaguchi would change his mind. Now he had nothing. Especially after what he did, there was no way Yamaguchi would ever take him back. Maybe he did hate him now, after Kei had tried to kiss him. That would only be slightly better than his indifference.

He was so wrapped up in his turbulent emotions that he missed his stop. He didn’t notice until the bus was pulling away from a familiar convenience store, and he pulled the cord to get off at the next intersection. His knees shook as he waited for the bus to crawl to a stop again. His slight irritation at having to walk a couple extra blocks was insignificant when he already felt like the whole world was conspiring to grind him down into the pavement.

Because even though he’d already figured out that he wasn’t a good person, he didn’t have to enjoy feeling like this. So he’d made some bad choices—what was he supposed to do, lie down and die? He knew he needed to pick himself up somehow, but he had no idea where to begin, not when he was full of remorse and guilt and longing and hurt and disgust.

He knew that alcohol wouldn’t pick him up, but hopefully it would make being flat on the ground hurt a little less.

He opened the door to the bar without scanning his surroundings. He walked straight to the counter and sat on one of the stools. He was slightly relieved to see that the bartender was the same one as last time. She was giving him an appraising look, but he didn’t give her a chance to speak.

“Double whiskey. Maker’s Mark.” He didn’t bother ordering the water this time.

She poured his drink and pushed it to him in record time. He grabbed the glass and downed it in three gulps. She made him another without exchanging a word. At least he knew now that Kuroo hadn’t ratted him out to her, though he couldn’t imagine what kind of person would do that.

The bar was quiet except for the rock music playing. The bartender stood nearby polishing glasses at a glacial pace that seemed more aligned with her personality. Kei stared at his second drink, watching as the amber liquid swirled darkly when he lifted the glass. He should have just gone to the nearest liquor store—it would have been a cheaper way to drown himself, and he was far beyond caring about the consequences of being caught drinking on a random street corner. He hadn’t been thinking about why he came all the way out to this dive bar, but maybe a part of him had been thinking that he might run into Kuroo here. He touched the glass to his lips and swallowed. The bourbon burned his throat that was already raw from crying. He tilted his head back further and drained the glass.

Kei counted his drinks this time. If it was possible to drink until he forgot his pain, then he wanted to know for future reference how much alcohol was required. By the time he was on his fifth, he had slumped down on the bar with his head resting on his arms. His stomach felt a little funny, but that didn’t matter when he could still see the anger in Yamaguchi’s eyes. He blinked at the bottles against the wall, gleaming in the light, then scrunched his eyes shut.

_ I can’t believe I tried to kiss him, as if that would bring him back to me. At least he really knows how worthless I am now.  _

The alcohol was chipping away at his anger, making him feel smaller and smaller. He felt less riled up, less violently disgusted with himself. It granted him just enough detachment for him to be able to look back on the events of the night. Yamaguchi had been so concerned to come in and find him crying by himself. Maybe if he’d kept his mouth shut, Yamaguchi would have held him and soothed his fears. But of course that was impossible, because Kei didn’t trust Yamaguchi. Of course he wanted to be held by the man who had been his lover for four years, but he didn’t want to have to explain to him why he had been crying, just like he’d never wanted to explain why he’d sometimes started to shake during sex and had to stop. Especially now, he didn’t want to open himself up further without the certainty that someone would catch him if he fell.

And that look on Yamaguchi’s face had hurt the most. The fury and pain in his expression made it clear that Kei was irredeemable in his eyes. He simply wasn’t worth the effort of arguing or working things out. Even though all Kei had wanted to do was to hold him close again, Yamaguchi had judged him completely with that one look.

_ I could have done better. But I didn’t. _

Instead of actually listening to Yamaguchi and trying to fix things, he had gotten angry, yelled at him, and basically attacked him.

Kei sighed and drained his glass. Well, there was definitely no going back now.

“You want another?” the bartender asked him skeptically.

“Yeah.” His voice was hoarse, so he tried to talk as little as possible. It wasn’t like he was in the mood for small talk anyway, and she wasn’t the type of bartender that wanted to coax his sob story out of him. She just wanted his money, and she was going to get it.

He got his sixth drink and tried to decide what to do. The alcohol made him feel like he could do whatever he wanted, but the problem was that he wasn’t sure what he wanted. Other than sitting here and imploding, the only thing he wanted was for someone to hold him, and make him feel like he was worthwhile.

He didn’t know what to do. Kuroo wasn’t here, and he couldn’t go back to the dorms. He didn’t have any friends he could go to, and he didn’t see what good calling Akiteru would do, since he lived three hours away. The one person he always used to go to when he was lonely didn’t want him anymore.

He hummed along to the song currently playing, trying to lose himself in  _ something.  _ He’d taken a sip of his drink and nearly gagged. At this point, he felt like all of his insides were made of whiskey, and he didn’t know how much more he could take without throwing up. If that happened, he would probably get thrown out, and he didn’t want that to happen when he didn’t have anywhere to go. He was pretty drunk at this point, but everything still hurt so much.

Then it came to him, something rising up from the memory of a half-sober conversation. Kuroo had said that he worked at Encounters on Thursday nights. He was probably there now. He pulled out his phone and waited for the clock on the display to come into focus. It was 11:17. Yeah, Kuroo was definitely at work.

Kei thought about it, or at least he tried. He was usually good at examining the pros and cons of each situation in order to make a well-informed decision. He tried to think about how Kuroo had said that he wasn’t looking for a quick fuck, how he had criticized Kei’s personality, but the only thing his mind was latching onto was how nice Kuroo’s voice had sounded when he called him pretty. Kuroo was good-looking—probably  _ too  _ good-looking, despite that ridiculous hair—but it was his voice that Kei needed right now.

He made his decision quickly. The alcohol lived up to its reputation by giving him courage, at least. He stood up and dug his wallet out of his pocket. He threw down most of his birthday money onto the counter, then considered his half-finished drink. He considered his stomach. A little more courage probably wouldn’t hurt. He took a deep breath, then on the exhale knocked down the rest of his drink in one gulp. His throat convulsed around the burning liquid, causing him to cough, which made the burn worse. He eventually swallowed everything down, and wiped at his lips. That had sucked, but it was definitely better than throwing up.

He tottered to the door and heard the bartender call out wearily, “See you next time!”

The cab ride to Encounters passed in a blur. When he was on his own two feet again in front of the club, he found that he was drunker than he had been before getting in the cab. He swayed on the sidewalk, waiting for his head to stop spinning. When he discovered that it wasn’t going to stop any time soon, he turned to consider the club. There was a short line of about half a dozen people in front of the door, and it didn’t look like Kuroo’s friend Bokuto was working. But Kei was not to be deterred. He stepped in the back of the line. He supposed the best thing to do was to simply ask if Kuroo was working or not. He had to know for sure.

He blinked, and suddenly he was stumbling in front of the bouncer. Man, that line had gone by  _ fast.  _ He squinted down at the man guarding the door, trying to decide if this was the guy that Yamaguchi had flirted with in order to gain entry that one time. He couldn’t quite remember what he looked like, but the guy in front of him had a potato face, so it probably was him. He’d been ugly, Kei remembered that for sure.

“ID,” the bouncer said boredly.

Kei reached in his pocket, then remembered that his ID wouldn’t help him, and he was supposed to ask this guy a question. He grinned, realizing that he probably looked like an idiot. “Isssss Kuroo wor-uh… working?” Oh great, he sounded like an idiot, too.

“Why do you need to know?” The bouncer leveled him a flat stare. God, Kei really hated his potato face. There was no other way to describe it. It was a face that looked like a raw, peeled potato, slightly lumpy but otherwise featureless.

He kept grinning. “ _ Because,  _ he’s mmmy fav’rite bartender.”

The bouncer rolled his eyes. “Yeah, he’s working.”

Kei’s heart thumped. “Well, when’ze done working?”

“Ugh.” Potato-face sighed and glanced at the line forming behind Kei. “He opened today, so he’s probably getting off at midnight. I dunno.”

He was clearly getting impatient, but Kei barely noticed. He whipped his phone out of his pocket so quickly that he nearly unbalanced himself. Bracing one hand against the wall, he tapped at his phone to check the time. It was 11:35.  _ What do I do, what do I do, what do I— _

“Are you coming in or not?”

Kei spun around and walked the other direction. His business with potato-face was done. He could wait until midnight. He hadn’t really planned out what he was going to say to Kuroo, but he did remember that he had a car. He’d probably driven to work, and he would have parked … where did the employees here park? His eyes scanned his surroundings, hardly taking in any details, but the streets were packed with cars. Even on a Thursday night, this was still the hottest place in town. There was probably a parking lot for employees … somewhere…

He made his way around the building, passing through a dark but well-paved alley. Behind the building, he found … a dumpster, about two thousand cigarette butts on the ground, what looked like the back door to Encounters, two rows of cars, and then the backs of whatever businesses they had the next block over. 

Kei hummed in contentment and leaned against the wall next to the door. His body felt hot, but the air he breathed felt cool in his throat. He closed his eyes, but the moment he did, he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. It was a text from Yamaguchi.

_ Yamaguchi: Where did you go? (11:39 p.m.) _

What an idiot. He shouldn’t have been thinking about Kei at all, unless it was in anger. He should be moving on with his life. Kei’s thumb hesitated over the screen of his phone as he stared at the text. Yamaguchi was a worrier. But telling him that he was drunk wouldn’t make him change his mind about the two of them. He knew now that nothing would. So he turned his phone off and shoved it deep into his pocket. 

Then he plopped down gracelessly on his ass. He supposed that talking was not heavily featured in his plans for Kuroo. Mostly he just wanted to fuck him. The alcohol told him it was a good idea and his throbbing dick told him it was a good idea. He wasn’t sure how he could be so horny while Yamaguchi was still plaguing his thoughts, but after six double-whiskeys, very little made sense. 

He stared at his shaking hands and laughed. He felt like crying, but he laughed instead, a low, light sound that rung in his ears. He was going to try to sleep with Kuroo even though he felt so disgusted with himself. He wasn’t too worried about it, though. He didn’t have much to lose. Certainly not his dignity. He was probably too drunk to even say the word “dignity” out loud. He didn’t try.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there—it could have been five minutes or an hour—before the door opened. He heard Kuroo’s voice before he saw him, and then he was striding out of the door. Kei scrubbed at his face in case he had been crying.

“...Not going to be able to—No… no… No, you’re the one who called me for advice, because,  _ hello,  _ I’ve actually played the game! And—hang on…. Um, I gotta go.”

Kuroo stood several feet away, staring down at Kei with wide eyes. He slowly lowered the phone from his ear and hung up.

“H-hey.” Kei waved weakly and pushed himself up the wall. At least he could stand up on his own. He would take any points in his favor he could get when Kuroo was looking at him like that.

“What are you doing here?”

“Uh…” Kuroo was wearing snug black slacks and a wine-red silk shirt, top two buttons undone. Shit. Damn. A slew of nervous thoughts started running through Kei’s head, but he wasn’t the type to let his tongue run away from him, even when he was drunk. “Looking for you,” he said honestly.

Kuroo still hadn’t moved since he’d spotted Kei. “So… You came to my work and decided to just sit in the back alley until I got off? And,” his eyes narrowed, “you got incredibly drunk somewhere along the way? This is … very strange. Some might even say creepy.”

Kei couldn’t help the low whine that his throat made. He couldn’t tell if Kuroo was happy to see him. If anything, he seemed guarded. Kei had been expecting his drunk ass to mess up this encounter at some point, but he had hoped that it wouldn’t be right at the beginning. Maybe he should talk more. Kuroo had liked him when he was talking, right?

“I wanted to see you.” He took a step forward, barely stopping himself from stumbling into Kuroo. “It’s my own damn fault for not getting your number las’ time. I can be pretty ss-stupid sometimes.” He figured a little self-deprecation might dispel the awkward tension between them, and it seemed to work.

“Hmm.” Kuroo considered him with glimmering eyes. “You’ve been thinking about me, huh?”

“I can’t stop,” Kei confessed. “I can’t help thinking that … that if I hadn’t lied to you, that night might have ended differently. It’s not too late to fix things, is it?”

Kuroo sighed and spread out his arms. “There’s nothing to fix. I’m a complete stranger—it’s not like you had any obligations to me. And it’s not like I’m stupid enough to expect to make a lasting connection with a stranger at a bar. I just thought you looked like you could use someone to talk to. Doesn’t hurt that you’re not exactly hard on the eyes, either.”

Kei stepped closer. He wanted to touch Kuroo. Was he allowed to do that? “But there was a c’nnection, wasn’t there? I’m-I’m a bit drunker than I was that night, but I’m not misremembering that, am I?”

“Ah, maybe.” Kuroo wore a small smirk. “It’s a bit soon to tell. Is that what you came here to find out?”

“I wanted to see you.” Oh, he’d said that already. What else should he say? “You look just as good as I remember.”

Kuroo let out a loud cackle. “You’re much more forward tonight! I guess a lot has happened in the last two weeks, huh? I suppose we could pick up where we left off once you’re sober.”

“No…” Kei felt himself sway back, and overcompensated for his loss of balance by shoving himself forward into Kuroo’s shoulder. Kuroo was warm and solid, so he clung to his sleeve. “I want … tonight…”

There was a long pause. Kei’s head felt warm and he could smell Kuroo’s deodorant. Was he being awful? Too clingy? He sort of remembered that he was supposed to be seducing Kuroo, but that sounded like a lot of effort.

“Hey,” Kuroo said gently, and took Kei by the shoulders. “Come on.”

“Huh?” Kei was standing up straight now, so he was looking down into Kuroo’s eyes instead of up. They weren’t brown, he decided, they were hazel. Or a dark and smoky amber. Smoky, like his voice. Kei smiled.

Kuroo was already steering him by the shoulders across the small parking lot. “I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume that you need a ride.”

Kei snorted. Stupid Kuroo. Of course he needed a ride. How else was he supposed to find out where Kuroo lived? They made their way over to a little black sports car. Of course Kuroo had a Miata. Nothing else would have made sense. Kuroo pushed the passenger seat back to make room for Kei’s legs, and helped him in. Kei bumped his head as he stumbled into the car, but laughed it off. It didn’t really hurt that bad. His  _ heart  _ hurt, if anything, but he found that being around Kuroo eased the ache a bit. He patted down his pockets to make sure he still had everything as Kuroo shut the door on him and made his way over to the driver’s side.

Kuroo started the engine, and loud dance music immediately came pumping out of the speakers. He slammed his palm down on the volume button, then chuckled in embarrassment. “Sorry. It’s what I like to listen to to get energized for work.”

Kei shrugged. “S’fine.” Did Kuroo think he was going to judge him for his music taste? Maybe he had come off as judgemental during their last conversation. Maybe he was just a little judgemental. But more importantly, why did Kuroo seem  _ nervous?  _

As the car pulled out of the alley onto the street, part of Kei was in disbelief that this was really happening. Apart from the growing pressure inside him that told him he really needed to piss soon, he felt sort of detached from reality. Even though he hadn’t had a drink in about an hour, he was reaching the peak of his intoxication, and he could finally ignore the awful feelings that Yamaguchi had carved into his very bones. All of his memories were far from his mind. He was only thinking about the immediate future. He wanted to lean over, push Kuroo’s head against the window, latch onto him, make him touch him, but that was probably a bad idea when he was driving. Kuroo was facing forward, jaw tense. He wished he would just tell him what was on his mind. But they weren’t exactly friends, were they?

“I … I don’t mind if you turn the music back on,” Kei said, anything to break the silence. “I could probably sing along to anything right now.”

“As much as I’d like to hear that, I don’t really need any extra distractions right now.”

Kei didn’t really think hard about it, just assumed that Kuroo was referring to him. He made a sort of snorting sound in the back of his throat. “Sorry if I’m too  _ sexy  _ for you to drive.” He didn’t really think of himself that way, but Kuroo was the one who had called him pretty.

Kuroo only ground his teeth and stared at the road. Kei didn’t know why he’d said that. He was a real mess right now, wasn’t he? His head lolled against the window; the streetlights that sped past dizzied him, and he thought about night drives with Akiteru. He didn’t mind being a mess at the moment. It seemed appropriate since his life had fallen apart. It was easier than holding everything in, easier than the stiffness he’d forced on himself for so long. He didn’t feel at all nervous about going home with Kuroo. In fact, he was a bit surprised at how easy it’d been. Either Kuroo really wanted to jump him, or he was just a sappy pushover. He hoped Kuroo didn’t try to get sappy with him. Of course, his immediate plans came crashing down when Kuroo spoke next.

“So, I need to know what dorm you live in.”

Kei jolted up in his seat and stared at him, his breath stolen away. “Wh- _ what? _ ” What kind of shitty misunderstanding was this? He didn’t want to go back to the dorms, he wanted to go home with Kuroo. Surely Kuroo wasn’t dumb enough to miss the way that—no, he couldn’t blame it on him, because Kei was so drunk he probably hadn’t been specific enough.

“If I’m going to drive you home, I need to know where to drop you off,” Kuroo explained patiently. 

“I—I  _ can’t _ —can’t go back…”

“Well, I don’t know where you expect me to take you.” Kuroo chuckled nervously, still not looking at him.

Kei took a deep breath. He needed to make Kuroo understand, and to do that he needed to breathe. But the oxygen choked him and made his head spin. “No, no, I can’t go back there. Not tonight, not while he’s there… I—”  _ Shit,  _ he was thinking about Yamaguchi again, and he couldn’t think about that dorm room, Yamaguchi’s furious face staring down at him, without thinking about those distant, darker memories that had turned him into a shaking mess in the first place. He clenched his teeth—he had to try to  _ hide  _ it again, hide it from himself—and hissed out, “Please. I can’t. Go.  _ Back. _ ”

Kuroo’s eyes were wide, his head whipping back and forth between Kei and the windshield. “Woah… Hey—uh …  _ shit _ …”

As Kei felt himself shrinking in on himself, a small part of his anger slipped out and lashed in Kuroo’s direction.  _ Kuroo, you idiot,  _ he found himself thinking,  _ did you already change your mind about all those things you said?  _ He had just at that moment realized how much he’d been hanging onto Kuroo’s words for the past two weeks, barely sustaining himself on the idea that a complete stranger might care about what was going on in his head. And of course he hadn’t realized what a devastating fall he would be in for if Kuroo were to reject him. He’d known that there was a chance Kuroo wouldn’t want anything to do with him, but now that he could actually feel Kuroo pulling away from him, he felt terrified.  _ Don’t you leave me too. I won’t let you.  _ This was his one chance, and he was screwing it up.

He stared at Kuroo with all the fire he could muster.

For a moment, Kuroo let his gaze linger on Kei, searching his face with clever eyes, before facing forward again. “...Fine,” he said softly, almost breathlessly. “I’ll take you to my place.” He jerked the car around the next turn and headed away from campus.

To Kei’s drunk mind, it felt like a victory. But it took a while for his body to calm down, to realize that Kuroo wasn’t rejecting him outright. By the time the car stopped, the air felt like it was fuelling him again instead of choking him, and his eyes had relaxed against the glare of the streetlight.

“Come on.” Kuroo parked his car and shot Kei a brief glance before opening his door. “Let’s go.”

Kei grabbed his door handle, but paused as his brain tried to fall into the well-worn groove of examining a situation before acting. What exactly was he doing? What was Kuroo doing?  _ Don’t overthink it,  _ another part of his brain said.  _ You’ll only hurt yourself.  _

Kuroo popped his door open. “You don’t need help getting up, do you?”

There was no teasing in his voice, and he didn’t look exasperated, either. Instead, he only seemed concerned. Kei scowled and heaved himself out of the car. He knew his pride had been eradicated along with his dignity, but he wasn’t looking for pity from Kuroo. 

He let Kuroo hold his arm as they made their way through the parking lot of an unfamiliar apartment complex. The buildings were dark smudges pressing in close, but at least the world wasn’t spinning anymore. He was led to Kuroo’s apartment, up stairs that threatened to upset his balance, but he held on. Despite the chill of the night, his chest radiated warmth that made his whole body tingle. Normally he would have been nervous at not knowing where the hell he was—he hadn’t been able to pay attention to the street signs on the way—but this was much better than being in his dorm. Kuroo was touching him. It wasn’t enough to satisfy him, but it was nice.

Kuroo unlocked a door and suddenly Kei was in his apartment. He got half a glimpse of malformed shadows in the moonlight streaming in from one large window before the lights were flipped on. He blinked and hovered by the door. Kuroo had let go of him and was making his way towards the little kitchen in the corner. The art on the walls were no more than chunks of color in his vision, and his eyes couldn’t seem to focus on the furniture, even though that couch would probably be a comfortable place to pass out—but was Kuroo ignoring him?

“Um… Do you live by yourself?” Kei’s voice traveled strangely through the small space.

He heard the sound of water running, and then Kuroo came back with a cup. It was red and plastic and had Mickey Mouse on it.

“Yeah. No roomies.” Kuroo’s mouth twisted into a crooked smile.

Kei grabbed the cup from him and took a sip. The tap water tasted horrible. He’d always spoiled himself with bottled water. “Doesn’t it get lonely?” he murmured at the floor. The contents of his stomach had stopped swirling, but his head felt heavy.

He heard a snort. “Are you always this serious? The guy I met two weeks ago would have made at least one snarky comment about the Mickey Mouse cup by now.”

“What guy?!” His head whipped up to see Kuroo looking at him with one raised eyebrow. “Oh. That’s me.” He chuckled and looked around, trying to decide why he was still standing here by the door. “Do… do you want me to take off my shoes?”

“If you'll be more comfortable that way,” Kuroo shrugged. “Come on, we’ve both got class in the morning.”

Kuroo hadn’t taken his shoes off yet, but Kei removed his and placed them neatly by the door. “Ah … mmm… Where’s your bathroom?” he tried to ask smoothly.

Kuroo jerked his head for Kei to follow him, and led him to the bathroom. “You don’t need any help, do you? I mean, I don’t want you to fall over or pass out in my bathroom.”

Kei shook his head. “It’s not that bad.” He fumbled for the light switch as he entered the bathroom, then shut the door behind him. He was still holding the stupid Mickey Mouse cup, so he set it on the ledge of the sink.

As he emptied his bladder, he tried to wrap his head around Kuroo. It was hard to consolidate Kuroo the person with the guy who had flirted with him in a dive bar two weeks ago, but that didn’t change what Kei wanted. Did Kuroo even want to sleep with him? It was difficult to tell, even though Kei had been practically throwing himself at him since he stepped out of Encounters. Maybe Kuroo had doubts because Kei was drunk. Maybe he had a boyfriend! Or maybe he was waiting for Kei to make the first move. Maybe what Kei thought had been obvious advances were too subtle. Make the first move… He zipped himself up. He’d never done this before, but he had to change something. He certainly hadn’t come here to just pass out, not while he still felt so shitty.

When he got out, Kuroo was still standing there next to the bathroom, waiting for him. “Hey…” Kei hesitated, unsure of what to say.

“Okay, let’s get you back to the couch. I’ll get you a bucket in case you need to throw up.” Kuroo was looking at him, but not in the eyes. 

Kei’s heart lurched, but he blurted out the first thing that came to his mind. “Do you have condoms?”

Kuroo’s mouth snapped open. “W-what?”

Kei was getting impatient. He shifted towards Kuroo, who edged backwards ever-so-slightly. But Kei cupped a hand around Kuroo’s cheek, let his eyes fall shut, and kissed him. For about half a minute he forced himself to be gentle, applying light pressure and relishing the warm tingles passing between their lips. Kuroo didn’t push him away. Then Kei placed a hand on Kuroo’s chest and opened his mouth to let his tongue explore. Kuroo tasted nothing like Yamaguchi.  _ No. No, don’t think about him.  _ Kei swiped his tongue over Kuroo’s lips, tasted the corner of his mouth, then sucked on his lower lip, massaging the soft flesh with his tongue. Kuroo tasted amazing. He began to respond, moving his lips back against Kei’s. He was satisfied with the small victory, but he wanted more.

He kissed across Kuroo’s jaw, then pressed his nose into the hair above his ear. “You know, you’re being very kind, but I didn’t come here for you to treat me like a kid who can’t handle his liquor,” he murmured against his smooth neck. “You need to treat me like a man now.”

Kei grasped the collar of Kuroo’s shirt and kissed him again. He nibbled and licked, spreading saliva around. It was hot, sloppy, and  _ good,  _ but… he needed  _ more.  _ He wanted to hear Kuroo gasp. He latched his mouth on Kuroo’s neck, one hand on his shoulder and the other stroking his chest. He wanted to move that hand lower. He wanted to feel him.  _ Touch me. Please touch me.  _ He found Kuroo’s pulse and ran across it with his tongue. He tasted sweat.

“Tsukishima… Wait…” Kuroo gasped.

Hearing him say his name set his heartbeat on fire. He didn’t even really register the second word he said. He captured a bit of the soft flesh of his neck between his teeth and sucked  _ hard.  _ Kuroo moaned softly. Kei found his nipple through his shirt and rubbed it with his thumb, testing. He was pleased to feel a little shudder ripple through Kuroo’s body.

Then Kuroo’s hand wormed its way between them and pressed gently on Kei’s collarbone. Kei didn’t move away, not even an inch. “Come on,” Kuroo gasped, his voice low and scratchy. “We have to stop.”

“Why?” Kei murmured, and flicked his tongue out experimentally against Kuroo’s ear.

“Ahh…” Kuroo jerked his head to the side and placed both hands on Kei’s shoulders. “B-because … you’re drunk, and … ah … shit…”

When Kuroo trailed off into profanities, Kei thought he might be done protesting. But then he spun them around and pressed Kei to the wall. He had a knee pressed between Kei’s legs and had his wrists pinned against the wall. Kei huffed out an annoyed breath. For the first time, the raw power in Kuroo’s body became apparent. If he could manhandle Kei this way, then he could end this any time he wanted. And apparently it was a big turn-on for Kei. Kuroo’s knee pushed against Kei’s growing erection, and he felt a thrill that Kuroo was snatching away the control that Kei had been seeking for himself.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Kei said, before Kuroo could spout any more words about stopping. He stared at Kuroo through heavy-lidded eyes, and he wondered what kind of picture he made. Was he a sloppy, slutty drunk right now? Did he look like a seductive sex god, or did he look like an inexperienced, insecure boy? When Kuroo didn’t answer, he prodded, “About the condoms.”

Kuroo surged forward, and suddenly his tongue was in Kei’s mouth. He took that as a yes to the question about the condoms, unless Kuroo was a bigger asshole than he thought. Kuroo still had his hands trapped, so he slowly thrust his pelvis against Kuroo’s knee as their tongues collided. He wanted to touch, he wanted to be touched. The heat between his legs was increasing, and he couldn’t help moaning into Kuroo’s mouth. He thought that would spur Kuroo on, but he still didn’t let go of Kei’s hands.

Frustrated, Kei squirmed and twisted until one of Kuroo’s hands loosened its grip, and he was able to pull an arm free. He immediately reached around and grabbed Kuroo’s ass, pulling forward and pressing his hips flush against his own. Kuroo groaned at the sudden friction on his cock, and Kei felt his shaky breath on his throat.

“Hah…” he exhaled. “That’s what you get for trying to hold back.” He felt the layers of muscle underneath the fat of Kuroo’s ass. It was such a thick ass, he wanted to bury his teeth into it. Digging his fingers in would have to do for the moment.

Something seemed to snap inside Kuroo. Suddenly Kei was being pulled away from the wall into the bedroom. Kuroo flipped them around and pushed Kei back, guiding him with both hands on his hips, until Kei fell back on the bed. He had kind of forgotten that he was still pretty drunk, but lying on his back, the world began to spin again. It became worse when Kuroo turned on a dim floor lamp and began to strip. Kei flung his forearm over his eyes. Even though Kuroo was very sexy, Kei did not have the patience to enjoy a striptease at the moment.

Then the thought struck him that perhaps Kuroo had turned on the light because he wanted to look at Kei. That was enough to get him interested again. He uncovered his eyes to see Kuroo standing over him wearing nothing but a pair of black cotton boxer-briefs. He leaned down and unbuttoned Kei’s jeans, then worked the zipper, keeping eye contact with him the whole time. Kei whimpered as he tugged his jeans off. The anticipation was overwhelming.

Cool air struck his skin as Kuroo pulled off his boxers immediately after his jeans. It seemed that Kei wasn’t the only one who was impatient. He pulled his shirt up to expose his chest, then reached down and wrapped a hand around himself. Kuroo’s intense gaze was such a drastic change from his earlier nervous glances that it was nearly tangible to Kei. He closed his eyes and felt Kuroo’s eyes eating him up as he stroked himself to full hardness. “Mmm, Kuroo,” he moaned, goading him, because even though Kuroo’s intent was obvious now, he still  _ wasn’t touching him. _

“You’re so pretty,” Kuroo said with a smile that Kei didn’t need to open his eyes to see. He felt the bed dip as Kuroo sat down next to him, then a hand lifted his shoulder as he shoved a fat, fluffy pillow under him. Kei blinked his eyes open in confusion, but he only got an eyeful of Kuroo’s black mop of hair right next to his face. A moment later there was wet heat on his collarbone. 

Kuroo kissed his way down Kei’s chest, all the way to his stomach. Kei huffed and wiggled. “Tickles,” he muttered. He released his own cock and put a hand on Kuroo’s shoulder, who looked up at him seriously.

“Just relax. I’ll make you feel good, I promise.”

Propped up as he was on his pillow, Kei could easily watch as Kuroo took his cock and licked a stripe up the shaft. He was too drunk to be embarrassed by the whimper that escaped his throat.  _ God, finally!  _ Kuroo’s tongue circled around the head, then his lips wrapped around him. He hummed happily, as if he actually enjoyed the taste. Some people were weird like that. “Shiiiiit.” The wet heat around his cock was good, maybe not good enough to make him come, but he could have lain there and basked in that feeling for hours.

Kuroo had other plans. Kei heard the click of a plastic cap, and he’d only closed his eyes for a moment, and when had he grabbed the lube? Kuroo pulled off of Kei’s cock, letting it plop onto his thigh, and made a show of lubing up his fingers. “Can’t take all night,” he said with an apologetic grin. “Got class in the morning.”

Kei couldn’t remember if he had class in the morning. He spread and lifted his knees, wishing the fluttering in his chest would stop. It was annoying and distracting. This wasn’t what he’d been expecting at all. He couldn’t help flinching as a cold, slick finger circled his asshole. Kuroo was telling him to relax again, and Kei tried to focus on his voice. He’d come here expecting to fuck Kuroo, but he should have known when Kuroo pinned him against the wall what it was he wanted. A finger gently slipped inside him, and he couldn’t look at Kuroo’s eyes, they were too intense. His gaze shifted to Kuroo’s bicep, and he grabbed his own cock with a light touch. He told himself to try to be patient—Kuroo had told him that he would make him feel good.

Kuroo pushed his finger in deeper and wiggled it around slowly. “God,” he exhaled. “You’re so tight. Don’t tell me you’re a virgin?”

“N-no,” Kei muttered in embarrassment. “It’s just been awhile since I’ve done it like this. I don’t usually…”

He trailed off with a pained groan as Kuroo slipped a second finger inside of him. He’d let Yamaguchi fuck him a few times before, but neither of them liked it that much. It was uncomfortable and a little humiliating for him, but he didn’t mind now, because Kuroo was touching him. He thought he might do anything to keep Kuroo with him, at least for just this one night.  _ I don’t even really like him that much,  _ he thought.  _ He’s cocky, he tries to act so smooth, as if he knows everyth—  _ Kei gasped as Kuroo’s fingers began to scissor inside of him, stretching him more. It was too overwhelming, he couldn’t focus on anything but the burning discomfort. “T-talk to me,” he demanded.

“Hmm?” Kuroo hummed, sliding his fingers in and out slowly. Kei turned his head away from him and clenched his bottom lip between his teeth. “What should I talk about? Should I tell you how sexy you look right now? God, you feel so hot and tight. Should I tell you how hard I am, how I can’t wait to be inside you?”

“Ngh…” Kei was gasping. “You … you don’t have to wait…”

“Uh-uh-uh.” His tone was suitable for someone wagging his finger at a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar, not for someone who was knuckle-deep in Kei’s ass. Kei risked a glance, and saw Kuroo watching him touch himself, face only inches away from his cock. He grinned up at Kei when he saw him looking. “You’re not ready yet.”

He retracted his fingers, causing a low whine to leave Kei’s throat. But he was only pouring more lube on his hand. He pushed his fingers right back inside easily, but the fresh lubricant was  _ cold!  _ Kei’s body twitched, and he glared at Kuroo. He really was impatient. “Show me,” he demanded. “Show me how hard you are.”

Kuroo, the bastard, wriggled out of his underwear without pulling his fingers out of Kei. He pumped his hand slowly and shifted his naked hips forward so that Kei could see his cock. Unlike Kei, Kuroo was circumcised. With his free hand, Kuroo grabbed his own erection. Kei only had time to see its dark color and the glisten of precum at the tip before his eyes glazed over. The heat rushing through him was intense, and he heard a strange noise come out of his mouth. “Come on,” he choked out. “Fuck me.”

Kuroo responded by pulling out, then sliding three fingers into Kei. “Shit!” He felt so full, and the alcohol in his system dulled the burn, but it had been a long time since he’d been stretched like this. Kuroo’s fingers moved slowly, forcing tremors into Kei’s thighs and down his legs. He suddenly yelped as the tip of Kuroo’s finger brushed against his prostate, sending a jolt of electricity through him. Kei threw his arm out blindly, and ended up latching onto Kuroo’s arm, who interpreted the touch as encouragement. He pressed in harder, and Kei’s vision whited out almost completely.

“I can’t wait to hear what kind of pretty noises you make when I’m actually fucking you,” Kuroo murmured.

There it was again, that word. Pretty. “Yeah, right,” Kei gasped. “Like you’ve got a magical dick or some— _ hnghh!”  _ Kuroo had stroked that spot again, and the pleasure had gone straight to his cock that time. “Stop! Stop it!” Kei exclaimed, trying to wriggle away. “I swear, if you make me come now, I’ll never forgive you!”

Kuroo was obedient for once and pulled his fingers out slowly. Their absence did nothing to still the tremors running through Kei’s legs. Kuroo batted Kei’s hand away from his cock and shifted up, leaning over him. He felt wet fingers loosely cradle his cock, and ok, that was a little gross, those fingers had just been in his  _ ass,  _ but—hot flesh bumped up against his cock, and Kei gave a slightly belated gasp when he realized that he was rubbing their erections together.

“I thought that’s what you wanted.” Kei didn’t even know what Kuroo was talking about anymore, and he looked up into Kuroo’s eyes. Kuroo slowly slid himself back and forth against Kei in his hand, and his cheeks were flushed, his pupils dilated. He stared right into Kei’s eyes and said, “I need you to tell me what you want.”

“What, do you want me to beg?” Kei scoffed weakly.

Kuroo shook his head slowly, his mouth hanging slightly open. He looked down at where they were touching, let out a shuddering breath, then looked back up at Kei. “Not tonight. Just … tell me what you want me to do. I need to hear the words.”

Kei felt his cheeks heat as he glared at Kuroo. He couldn’t believe he was going to make him say it. How humiliating. “Kuroo. I want you to fuck me.”

Dark amber eyes blinked above him, and then shifted away. He heard the slide of a wooden drawer, then the crinkle of a wrapper. “Why don’t you turn over,” Kuroo suggested somewhere to his left. “It’ll be better that way.”

Kei’s heart wrenched painfully at those words. Shit, Kuroo didn’t even want to look at him while they fucked. Then he remembered that supposedly it was easier to hit someone’s prostate from behind. Yamaguchi had certainly liked it that way, but he’d also always wanted to try all sorts of positions…  _ God dammit, what the fuck are you doing, thinking about him right now?  _ he mentally berated himself. He angrily rolled over, positioned the pillow under his chest, and stuck his ass up in the air. He turned his head to see Kuroo rolling a condom down his thick length. His eyes were roaming all over Kei’s body. He didn’t want just his eyes on his body, though.

Kei wiggled his ass a little bit, and said, “Like what you see?” Yeah, seduction was not his forte. But he wasn’t so drunk that he was just gonna sit back and do  _ nothing.  _

He expected a little bit of taunting from Kuroo, but he only hummed a short, “Mmm,” and shuffled behind Kei until all he could see was his shadow over him. He felt Kuroo’s hands parting his ass cheeks, then something warm and hard rested against his entrance. “Ready?”

Kei took a deep breath, and shifted on his elbows. “Yeah,” he said hoarsely.

Kuroo’s hands slid up to his hips, and then there was pressure against his entrance. Against his baser instincts, Kei pressed backwards against it, trying to relax his muscles, until the head of Kuroo’s cock broke through. He shut his eyes and tried to breathe. He was glad now that Kuroo had spent so much time preparing him, but he felt like he definitely didn’t have enough practice with this. He wanted more—more contact, more friction, more pleasure, but was it too soon to start moving? There was only a little bit of pain, so what if he…? He pushed back just a little bit more, but the ring of muscle around his entrance protested so greatly that Kei bit the pillow just to keep from crying out.

“Hold on.” Kuroo gripped his hips more firmly to keep him from moving. “God, you’re so impatient,” he muttered. He pulled back slightly, and the friction made Kei wince. He was trying to relax, trying to breathe, Kuroo had  _ promised  _ that it would feel good, but… Suddenly there was a dark feeling swooping through him, making his gut clench fearfully, and making him think that maybe he couldn’t do this after all. Maybe he didn’t deserve to be with anyone like this, maybe he didn’t deserve to feel good. Maybe all he was doing was hurting himself.

But then one of Kuroo’s hands left his hips. “I’m gonna touch you now.” Even with the warning, Kei’s breath hitched to feel Kuroo’s hand on his cock. He gripped him firmly at the base, then stroked up, ran his thumb slowly over the head, then stroked back down. He repeated the motion, and Kei moaned to encourage him.

“Yeah, Tsukishima, it feels good, doesn’t it?” Kei hummed his assent, and Kuroo stroked faster. “You like it when I say your name, don’t you? You want me to call out your name while I’m fucking you. Tsukishima.”

Kei moaned again, his shoulders and chest relaxing into the pillow. Kuroo’s words were making his ears burn, but the rest of him was starting to feel good again. There was just enough give in Kuroo’s grip for him to push back just a centimeter more onto Kuroo’s cock, and then pull back again. It didn’t feel awful. It felt … a little exciting. “Mmm. Ye-eah…” he mumbled incoherently, the pillow pushing his glasses askew. It didn’t matter, because he wasn’t using his eyes at the moment anyway.

“Now, be a good boy and hold still,” Kuroo said playfully.

Kei huffed, a bit confused by all the mixed signals. He didn’t exactly want to do whatever Kuroo told him. It was a bit pathetic even for him to obey someone just because they had their dick in his ass. But the sound of Kuroo’s voice was so good, it was tempting to go along with what he said, just for now. At the same time, Kei’s body was begging for more, to go deeper, to feel all of Kuroo. “Come on,” he groaned. “I’m ready.”

“You’re too tight,” Kuroo complained, but after a few seconds he started to move. He thrust his hips in and out in tiny motions, torturously slow, but Kei felt each motion intensely. Inch by inch, Kuroo worked himself in further, hand still working Kei’s cock, until he was nestled almost completely inside of him.

“Fuck,” Kei whimpered. His whole body was trembling, coiled tight, aching for release. “Don’t stop now.”

“I’m not planning on it,” Kuroo said breathlessly behind him. He grabbed Kei’s hips with both hands again, and he only had a split second to mourn the loss of contact on his throbbing erection before Kuroo pulled back until only the tip was inside of him. Then he pushed back in, slowly, in a smooth, steady motion, and Kei cried out loud, his toes curling. He kept fucking Kei with long strokes, and he knew he was drooling on the pillow, but he didn’t care. “I told you I would make you feel good,” Kuroo was saying. “You like it like this, don’t you? Or do you like it faster?”

Kei couldn’t find the words to tell him that he didn’t care if it was slow or fast, as long as he kept touching him. He was losing himself to it all, to the sweet friction, the throbbing heat spreading through his whole body, and the bruising grip on his hips, and all he could do was moan a little bit louder.

Kuroo began thrusting more quickly. “Yeah, you like it. You love it, don’t you? You love my big cock inside of you, you love being filled up like a slut.”

Kei whimpered as one of Kuroo’s deeper thrusts hit his prostate. “Y-yeah,” he cried out weakly. He knew this was a game, he knew Kuroo couldn’t say those things with a straight face in any other situation, but it was making him lose his mind. He did like it, he liked being used by him, if it made him feel this good.

“Fuck, Tsukishima!” Kuroo pulled back and slammed into him at a slightly different angle, hitting his sweet spot straight on. Kei let out an embarrassingly high-pitched noise, and he felt his cock spasm. Kuroo repeated the motion again and again, all the while saying, “God, Tsukishima, you feel so good. You’re so dirty, but you’re so good for me. Fuck, so good…”

Kei’s head was whirling and his thighs felt like jelly. He knew without Kuroo holding his hips up, he would have been flat on his stomach. Even with his eyes open, he couldn’t see anything. His senses were lost to the sound of Kuroo’s voice and the feeling of him spreading him open. He was impossibly deep inside of him now, thrusts rapid and shallow, so that his cock hit Kei’s prostate in rapid repetition. He barely had time to take a breath between each pulse of pleasure, and he felt his climax rushing closer.

“Ku-ro-K-kuroo—ah-Ku _ roo _ ,” he heard himself babbling, and thankfully Kuroo had enough of his wits about him to know to reach down and grab Kei’s cock. He pumped him in time with his thrusts, and Kei gasped as something snapped apart deep inside of him, then waves of relief rolling through his body as he came onto the sheets, crying and shaking, clenching then releasing around Kuroo’s cock. Kuroo moaned loud, thrust deep into Kei a few more times, and was still.

Kei fell limply onto the bed and gasped for breath. The tremors running through his body slowly subsided, and he barely felt Kuroo rolling off of him. His head felt warm and heavy. He was completely drained of all energy. He felt his glasses tugged away from his face, but he didn’t even open his eyes. He was sinking fast, but he’d been up so high that night that it felt wonderful to fall back down again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, BIG PSA!  
> I feel the need to state the obvious here, just to avoid confusion: Someone cannot consent to sex when they're drunk. Sex without consent is rape. I do not condone rape or drunken sex, especially if it's a couple's first time together! That lovely smut scene that I wrote is bad, bad, very bad, but I'm going to try to explain it anyway. I decided to label this scene as dubcon instead of noncon (I don't even like to use the phrase non-consensual sex, but that's a whole other issue I'm not going to unwrap here) because neither of the characters end up being traumatized because of this sex. Each of the characters go into this encounter carrying their own traumas with them, and they come out of it as slightly different people, but certainly not changed for the worse. I decided to write a story where characters make bad decisions. Kuroo definitely should not have slept with Kei. Doesn't matter that Kei made bad choices and threw himself at Kuroo. Kuroo should have stopped it, but he didn't. So, this sex scene was problematic, but (some of) the problems will be addressed in the next chapter. I know these kinds of things make for uncomfortable reading, but I can only hope that it also makes for interesting reading. With that in mind, there's one final point I need to clarify: This scene is not meant to be romantic! Dancin' and romancin' will come later on, because I'm writing one of those ass-backwards kinds of fics.
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading! If you need incentive to come back for more, I'll tell you now that we see Tsukki at his lowest in this chapter. It won't be an easy path, but it's all up from here. That's a tentative promise from me to you.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! After an even loooonger break!  
> Um, seriously though, I don't know why this chapter is so long when nothing really happens in it. We get a little bit of Bokuto and Akaashi though, and more Yachi and Akiteru, and the long-awaited (in my mind, at least) Noya/Asahi cameo! I'm not really sure yet what part Noya will play in this story, I just know I have a lot of fun writing him.  
> Please enjoy this offering from me to you.

Kei woke reluctantly. He was cocooned in a warm, soft blanket, but an uncomfortable restlessness in his body caused him to stir. He opened his eyes and twisted around in his blanket. His muscles felt stiff, and each move he made was met with painful resistance, but the sunlight flooding his vision was disorienting and he needed to find his glasses. He rolled around a bit, finding his bearings, and there was no one in the bed with him, but he found his glasses on top of the night stand.

With his vision coming in clearer, he could look around the room he was in. The good thing—certainly less painful than the alternative—was that he remembered everything. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been paying attention to his surroundings at all last night. Was it interesting that Kuroo kept posters of his favorite basketball players on the wall? Not really, but if Kei had bothered to pay attention last night, then the sight of half a dozen athletic men on the walls probably wouldn’t have been so disorienting.

Kei’s phone and wallet and keys were on the night stand as well. He sat up in bed and grabbed his phone first. He guessed that it was probably at least ten in the morning. He was painfully aware of how much light was streaming in the window. As he waited for his phone to power up, he felt a full-body ache coming on. He wiggled his legs experimentally and winced at the dull burn in his muscles. He didn’t really want to move at all. He wanted to roll back over and keep on sleeping, but he actually really needed to use the bathroom. His phone flashed on and immediately displayed the time. It was already afternoon.

Kei groaned. He’d already missed two of his classes, which suddenly seemed much more dire than it had last night. Had Kuroo even tried to wake him up? It was awfully quiet in the apartment. He supposed he’d better figure out what was going on, but first things first.

He rolled his legs over the side of the bed and carefully stood up. His head was pounding and his mouth tasted like sweaty socks, but it seemed he could move around okay. He found his clothes on the floor and heard his phone ping repeatedly with incoming texts as he got dressed. He ignored the phone in favor of going to the bathroom. Once his bladder was empty, he was able to put more effort into figuring out what the hell was going on exactly. He’d fucked Kuroo last night, and now he was supposed to, what, just wait around for him to come back from wherever he was and give him a ride home? He could just call a cab, but he wasn’t sure if he was really ready to go back to his dorm, and he definitely wasn’t up to the task of going to his afternoon class. It wasn’t until three, but he had a solid feeling that his hangover wasn’t going to be cured by painkillers and a cup of coffee.

He needed—ugh, he had no idea what he needed.

He grabbed his phone and other belongings from the bedroom, and, restraining himself from flopping back down on the bed, made his way to the kitchen. Just walking that short distance made his thighs and his ass hurt. He was glad one of them had been sober, because if they’d rushed into things without preparation the way Kei had wanted to, then the burn he was feeling now would have been much worse. He’d definitely rushed things plenty on his own. As he opened the fridge, he wondered groggily if he’d left any salvageable part of his relationship with Kuroo to work with. Such as it was. He felt a bit embarrassed by pushing for sex before even really getting to know Kuroo, but at least he wasn’t under any false impressions about Kei now.

He found a bottle of water in the fridge and took it. There was also an impressive amount of produce in the fridge. He made a quick inference about Kuroo’s cooking skills, and added it to the short list of things he knew about him: Biochemistry major, knows how to bartend, likes trashy dance music and basketball, and knows his way around a kitchen. He closed the fridge and drank his water greedily.

Once his thirst was quenched, he let his eyes wander. His mouth still didn’t taste great, so maybe he could find something to chew on that wouldn’t turn his stomach. Kuroo kept a very clean kitchen, though. The only things on the counters were a few appliances, a red tea towel with a black cat embroidered on the corner, and a bunch of bananas hanging on a little hook stand. And a purple sticky note. Kei leaned closer to read it.

_“I tried to wake you up, but you’re a really deep sleeper! I knew you would punch me if I tried throwing water on you, and you probably need the sleep anyway. I’ll be back at 12:30 to make lunch, so feel free to stick around til then if you need a ride back to campus. Here’s my number if you need anything. xxx-xxxx”_

Huh. Kuroo’s handwriting was loopy and relaxed, but not sloppy. Kei folded the little note and slipped it carefully into his pocket. That would spare him the awkwardness of asking for his number, at least. The clock on the microwave told him that it was already 12:35, so hopefully he wouldn’t have to wait much longer. His breath was still awful, though.

He went back to the bathroom, and, after a quick search through the cabinets, found a bottle of mouthwash. It wasn’t like he thought he would be kissing Kuroo anytime soon, he just didn’t want to have to deal with the foul taste in his mouth on top of his headache, his tender stomach, and aching muscles. He used the mouthwash quickly, the burn of it making him feel a little more alert, at least.

Then he went back to the kitchen and leaned back against the counter, because he didn’t really want Kuroo to come home to find him flopped down on the couch or bed. His head still felt fuzzy, and he needed something to settle his stomach, but at least he could stand on his own two feet. With nothing much to do, he took out his phone and tapped in the code to unlock it. He stared at the overwhelming amount of message notifications with a little trepidation. Okay, so maybe seven messages shouldn’t have been overwhelming, but after … what had happened, he knew they couldn’t be good.

He sighed, adjusted his glasses, and opened up the messages. Apparently, after Kei had turned his phone off, Yamaguchi had texted him six times.

_Yamaguchi: I asked Shouyou and he said you’re not with him. (11:41 p.m.)_

_Yamaguchi: I’m still mad at you, but you should come back. (11:50 p.m.)_

_Yamaguchi: Tsukki, I’m really worried. At least let me know you’re ok (12:18 a.m.)_

_Yamaguchi: I swear, if you snuck into the library or something and you’re spending the night there, I’m gonna kick your ass (12:21 a.m.)_

_Yamaguchi: I just hope you’re with a friend. (1:35 a.m.)_

_Yamaguchi: I know you don’t owe me anything, but I wish you’d at least text me back. (8:46 a.m.)_

Kei had to read over the words several times for their meaning to really sink in. He resented that the simple mental effort of reading made his head throb harder, but worse was the sudden pressure on his chest, making his nausea swell.

He couldn’t do this.

He couldn’t deal with Yamaguchi’s worries, he couldn’t push his brain to come up with appropriate words to send to him when he was still so hungover. Even though Yamaguchi was a worrier, he never let his worry escalate into panic. If Kei sleeping in the library was the worst scenario he’d imagined, then he probably hadn’t gone so far as to report his little disappearing act to the authorities.

He decided to tell Yamaguchi that he was okay once he actually felt okay. Or better, at least. Maybe he could even get away with sneaking back to the dorm and letting him figure it out on his own.

Kei shifted uncomfortably against the counter and looked at the other notification he had.

_Hinata: Everything ok? Yams was asking about you! (11:49 p.m.)_

Great, now Hinata was worried about him, too. At least he was used to Kei ignoring him, so he had few misgivings about shoving his phone back into his pocket without getting anything actually accomplished. He finished off his water and retrieved another bottle from the fridge with only a moment of hesitation.

Kei had plenty of warning that Kuroo was back. He could hear boisterous male voices coming from all the way outside. By the time the voices were inside the apartment building, coming up the stairs, Kei could identify Kuroo’s voice, even though it wasn’t the loudest one. Great, so Kuroo had brought a friend home. Were they here to eat lunch, or something else? Kei gripped the counter awkwardly as the door opened.

Kuroo noticed Kei immediately after entering the apartment, though his friend kept on talking. Kuroo interrupted his friend with a jab to the ribs. “He’s here.” That got him to shut up, and he turned golden eyes on Kei. As Kuroo closed the door behind them and dropped his keys on the couch, the loud friend hurried over to Kei and planted himself in front of him with his hands on his hips.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Kei immediately winced at the volume of his voice. “I’m Bokuto! What’s your name?”

Kei looked to the side and rubbed his temple. “Ugh. It’s Tsukishima.”

“Wow, he’s tall, Tetsu!” Bokuto called over his shoulder, but his eyes didn’t stray from Kei’s face. “And skinny, too! A lot skinnier than me, right bro?”

“Jesus, lower your voice, I’m right here,” Kuroo said as he shuffled into the kitchen with a grocery bag. “And have some sympathy for a guy with a hangover.” He jerked his head towards Kei.

Bokuto finally gave up his macho stance and turned to Kuroo, though he seemed to completely ignore his words. “Hey, I recognize this guy! Do you think I had a class with him?”

“I told you, Bo, he’s been to Encounters before. You probably saw him there. And stop talking about him like he’s not here.”

Bokuto grinned at Kei. “Yeah, I think I _do_ remember you! You were acting kinda funny, maybe because I wouldn’t let you in without an ID. Hey, do you remember me, Tsukki? Aren’t I the best bouncer?”

“Maybe the most _annoying._ ”

Bokuto’s face drooped, and Kuroo hummed thoughtfully. “Hmm, that’s a cute nickname… Tsukki…”

“Don’t call me that!” Kei snapped. He grabbed his water bottle and pushed past them into the living room, where he sat down heavily on the couch. He thought he’d be able to handle talking to Kuroo with a hangover, but with Kuroo’s annoying friend, or boyfriend, or whatever Bokuto was, thrown into the mix, it was starting to look like he had an insufferable afternoon ahead of him.

“Bokuto, rinse the bok choy,” he heard Kuroo order him. “ _Gently._ ” There was some general noise in the kitchen that Kei tried to pretend didn’t made his head feel like it was being stabbed from the inside, and then a minute later, Kuroo was standing in front of him.

Kei opened his eyes—when had he let them fall shut?—to see Kuroo holding out his hand toward him, palm up. “What?” he groaned.

“Take ‘em.” Kuroo tilted his palm so that Kei could see the two pills he held. “It’s just aspirin. You obviously need it.”

Kei grabbed the pills out of his hand and popped them into his mouth. As he washed them down with water, Kuroo sat next to him on the couch, but with a respectable distance between them.

In a soft voice, Kuroo said, “I’m glad you’re here.” His head was angled down towards his lap, and his flop of black hair hid most of his face. “I wanted to talk to you, if that’s all right.”

It would have been intimidating to hear those words from someone like Yamaguchi or Akiteru, but even though they’d fucked less than twelve hours ago, he didn’t know Kuroo that well, so the idea of a “talk” didn’t seem that bad. Maybe because he didn’t have much to lose in this situation. “Okay.” Damn, his voice was wrecked. He needed at least a full day of no crying, no screaming, and definitely no drinking. “I mean, I’ll listen to you, but I think multiple brain cells got drowned in whiskey last night, and I don’t think they’re coming back.”

Kuroo snorted softly. “Do you want me to drive you back to campus? I know Bo can be a lot to handle, even without a hangover.”

Kei grimaced as Bokuto shouted from the kitchen, “I can hear you talking about me!” Seriously, the apartment wasn’t that big. Did he not understand the concept of an indoor voice? He might be worse than Hinata.

“Yeah, that’d be cool.” He’d never had a hangover this bad before, but he had the feeling a car ride would make him sick. He just wanted to crawl back into bed, but that would be imposing, wouldn’t it? If Kuroo was offering him a ride, he’d better suck it up and take the offer. “There’s no reason for me to hang around for your little lunch date. Whatever you cook up would be wasted on my stomach, anyway.”

Kuroo leaned back, and Kei could see a lazy little smile on his face. “Yeah, we do it every Friday, just the two of us. Bokuto may seem like a spontaneous, happy-go-lucky type of guy, but he really relies on rituals like this. If it weren’t for him, I might have stayed in bed with you a little while longer, but I knew he was planning on meeting me at the gym during our morning break. He was in a really bad mood because his boyfriend scolded him for something really dumb this morning, but he perked right up when I told him that I might have a cute boy waiting for me at my apartment.”

“Kiss and tell much?” Kei scoffed.

“Kuroo tells me everything!” Bokuto called with an obvious tone of pride in his voice.

Kuroo rolled his eyes. “Yeah, if you wanted me to be your dirty little secret, then sorry, I guess it’s too late for that. He is my best friend, believe it or not.”

Kei couldn’t bring himself to be that annoyed. He was just happy to learn that Kuroo and Bokuto didn’t have a romantic sort of relationship. Bokuto had a _boyfriend_ , and he had been excited to see what kind of guy Kuroo had slept with, because they were best friends. Kei huffed out a little laugh at himself. He hadn’t given a shit last night if Kuroo was single or not, but now he was relieved. Because causing misery in _another_ relationship was the last thing he needed.

But just because he’d confirmed that Kuroo wasn’t dating Bokuto, that didn’t mean he was single. He opened his mouth, looked at Kuroo, considered asking him outright, but at that moment, Bokuto approached the couch.

“I’m hungry,” he whined. “Feed me!”

“Your best friend is a Tamagotchi,” Kei informed Kuroo.

“That’s fair.” Kuroo got to his feet and stretched, popping his back as Bokuto mumbled, “Am _not._ ” Kuroo turned and held out his hand to Kei. “Let’s get you home.”

Kei hesitated, then took Kuroo’s hand, letting him pull him to his feet. Moving really sucked—his head and stomach whirled in opposite directions, and his muscles threatened to go on strike and join a labor union—but there was no way around it. He let go of Kuroo and patted his pockets just to make sure. “I’ve got all my stuff, so we can go.”

Kuroo nodded, then turned to Bokuto. “I need you to behave yourself for ten whole minutes. That means don’t touch my knives, don’t touch the stove, and don’t steal anything from my fridge. In fact, you’d better just stay out of the kitchen.”

“Fine,” Bokuto pouted, and flopped down onto the spot Kuroo had just vacated. Kei wondered if Kuroo’s heavy hand in the bedroom had anything to do with years of dealing with Bokuto. Kuroo seemed satisfied with Bokuto’s response, and waited for Kei to put his shoes on, and then they left the apartment.

When the walked out the main doors on the ground floor, Kei squinted. It was cloudy out, and a good deal cooler than yesterday, but there was only a thin layer of clouds that let a lot of light through. He stumbled after Kuroo to his car, gritting his teeth against the pain in his head and holding the goal of his darkened dorm room in his mind.

Kuroo’s car was much less amusing to Kei in the sober light of day. He bent down to get into the passenger seat of the black Miata, shifted his knees up to a forty-five degree angle, and pulled his door shut. “Why would you do this to yourself?” he asked flatly once Kuroo had sat down next to him, gesturing vaguely. “Your legs are just as long as mine are.”

Kuroo turned the key in the ignition, and the engine rumbled to life. “My parents gave me this car when I was in high school.”

Kei noticed the way his brows furrowed and his mouth twisted before he replied, but he was too tired to think anything of it. “Okay. Yeah. I wouldn’t turn down a free tiny car, either.” He drummed his fingers against his knee as Kuroo whipped his head to the side to back out of the parking space. They exited the apartment complex in silence, which Kei normally would have considered a blessing. But Kei noticed how Kuroo had become unusually tight-lipped again, now that they were alone.

“So you wanted to talk to me?”

It took a minute for Kuroo to reply. Kei never would have guessed that he was the type to actually think before speaking, but he scratched his scalp and stared at the road as they drove. He glanced at Kei, then finally said, “I had all morning to think about what happened last night, and I guess … I should start by apologizing.”

Kei stared at him.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’ve taken strangers home before. I’ve slept with people without knowing more than their name. But I don’t sleep with people when they’re drunk. If I’d be scared to let them drive, then there’s no sex. I guess that’s a little rule of mine. But you … you were way past that point last night.”

“I wasn’t _that_ drunk,” Kei grumbled under his breath, even though his hangover told a different story. He wondered if the sinking feeling in his stomach was from that, or because Kuroo was confirming his suspicions that he wouldn’t want anything to do with him after one night. Even if he was trying to apologize, the feeling still sucked. “So, I made you break one of your rules. So what?”

“Uh…” Kuroo let out a shaky breath, and stared hard at the road. “Okay, so yeah, it was kind of fucked up that you got drunk, stalked me at work, and demanded that I take you home with me. But it was also fucked up that I slept with you when you were drunk and I was sober.” He got a glimpse of Kei’s stony expression before looking forward again. “I mean, it’s not about _rules._ It’s about not being a shitty person, and I think I might have been pretty shitty last night. So … sorry.”

Kei looked away from Kuroo. He felt too sick to even begin to try to understand what feelings those words had created, so he thought he’d better just try to get the facts straight. “So, you’re apologizing because you regret fucking me?”

“Well, basically, yeah.”

“Huh.” He stared out the window, and pointed out the street Kuroo was supposed to turn on. He had been waiting since he woke up for some indication that last night had been a mistake, like a feeling of regret, guilt, or even disgust. He didn’t feel any of those things. The sex had been good, or at least he’d thought. The only good thing that had happened last night. He didn’t believe that sex was something to base a relationship on, but he didn’t want Kuroo feeling guilty about taking advantage of him, either. “Well, I don’t regret it.”

“Really?” Kuroo winced. “I don’t know if you remember exactly—”

“I remember everything,” Kei interrupted flatly. “And it was fine. You did everything I asked you to, so you shouldn’t be worrying about me.”

“Oh. I thought it might have been some kind of fluke, but I guess there’s no accounting for taste.”

Was that supposed to be a self-deprecating comment, or was there a dig at Kei hidden in there somewhere? He sighed and looked out the window, too tired to work his head around the subtleties of Kuroo Tetsurou’s personality. His thoughts swum sluggishly around his head until he spotted his dorm building. “This is me,” he announced. “You can pull in right past that fire hydrant.”

As they pulled into his dorm’s parking lot, Kei regarded the students swarming around balefully. Then he turned to Kuroo. His expression was serious, but it didn’t seem like he was going to say anything. “I kept the note you left on the counter.” His most pressing concern was his ability to make it up the stairs to his room without throwing up, but he figured there were a few things he should clear up before leaving the car. “So I have your number now, I guess. Could … could I text you? If I want to do this again?”

“Ah.” If Kuroo was surprised by the question, he didn’t show it. His eyes were still narrowed in seriously on Kei’s face, and his hand rested gently on the gear stick. “Yeah. If you wanna meet up again, I probably wouldn’t say no. Just… Maybe a little less alcohol can be involved next time, okay?”

Kei nudged his glasses to try to distract Kuroo from the blush that may or may not have spread across his cheeks. He might have enjoyed the end result of getting fucked by Kuroo, but he was still embarrassed about how drunk he’d been. And _next time,_ Kuroo said. Okay, so that was a good sign. “Okay. Good. Um, you don’t have a boyfriend, do you? Or a girlfriend?”

Kuroo’s brows furrowed. “No way! What kind of guy do you think I am?”

“It was a reasonable question!” Kei snapped, opening his door and unwinding his legs. “Thanks for the ride, Kuroo.”

Kuroo chose that moment to let his serious expression slide away with a smirk spreading his face wide, and then he winked at Kei. “The pleasure was all mine.”

Kei slammed the car door in his face.

* * *

Kei was able to go up to his room and pass out without anyone else bothering him or having to run to the bathroom down the hall to throw up. Being unconscious and oblivious in a dark, quiet room was almost blissful, but all good things had to end. When he woke up again, it was just after three o’clock, and his stomach was gnawing at him.

He took a shower that was long overdue, then headed to the campus cafe as soon as he was dressed. The sky was still overcast, but the wind had picked up while he’d been asleep, bringing a cooler temperature. He tugged down the sleeves of his cardigan and hurried across the quad.

The cafe he was aiming for was in a brick building that housed a large event space. The main room of the building had a ceiling that reached almost three stories high. There was a stage next to a wall with gigantic tinted windows, and chairs, tables, and sofas were scattered about the rest of the large space. On the opposite wall, there was a door that led to the campus bookstore, and next to that was the school’s most popular cafe.

Since Kei first attended school here, he’d had to endure countless people recommending the smoothies from this cafe to him, as if he’d asked for their opinion. He usually just came here for a quick coffee or espresso, though he’d ordered a strawberry milkshake once, which he admitted was pretty much outstanding, even though he suspected making an awful milkshake was difficult to do. Another reason the cafe was so popular was because the cutest gay couple on campus worked here—or at least that was the opinion Kei had heard from several girls that had come to his freshman study circle.

Even though there were dozens of students lounging about the large room, there was no line at the cafe. Kei hurried over to the counter, noting with relief that Azumane Asahi was working. Azumane was one of the most pleasant people Kei had ever interacted with at this school. Despite his intimidating physique, Kei had never seen him be anything but patient and reserved. He’d also seen him wearing t-shirts with logos of bands he liked, so Kei had a little respect for his tastes in that avenue, at least.

Azumane noticed Kei standing there, and started to walk over to him. “What can I get started for you?”

Kei opened his mouth to reply, but before Azumane could even reach the register, the soft pitter-patter of feet and the appearance of spiky, multicolored hair heralded the presence of Nishinoya Yuu. And this was where Kei’s and Azumane’s tastes diverged.

“Tsukishima!” Noya bounced on his heels to see over the mounted tablet they punched their orders in on. “Where the hell have you been hiding, man?”

Kei knew the question wasn’t meant to be an attack, but Noya’s particular brand of aggressive friendliness never failed to set him on edge. “Excuse me?”

Noya just grinned at him. “It’s been, like, five years since you came to a Pride meeting! Everyone misses you!”

Kei scowled. He shouldn’t have to deal with Noya making fun of him on top of the vestiges of his hangover. “Don’t fuck around with me. I just want a cup of coffee.”

“It’s true, though.” Azumane peered at him around the top of the pastry display case. “I think some of the freshmen were a little star-struck last time you came.”

They’d probably been staring at Yamaguchi, but he didn’t feel like arguing the point. Surely everyone knew that Yamaguchi was available now. “Probably the gifted few who could smell Oikawa’s bullshit,” he muttered, averting his eyes to the pastry case.

Noya cackled, and Kei had to resist the urge to cover his ears. “For real, though, when are you coming back? We need more people of your intelligence. What was that sign that he made last year, Asahi?”

Azumane frowned. “I can’t remember every protest sign our group has made.”

“Oh, it was a really good one!” Noya was still bouncing. “I think it might have convinced a few goody two-shoes that Tsukishima was evil, but the rest of us sinners got a good kick out of it. Oh yeah, that’s it! It was, ‘GAY SEX IS SINSATIONAL!’”

“Oh, right.” Azumane chuckled awkwardly, clearly doubting his alignment with the sinners.

“I just copied it off of another sign I found with a quick Google search.”

“Anyway.” Noya faced Kei with a stern expression. “I know you’re not very social or whatever, but neither is Asahi, and he still comes. You do good work. We need you.”

“You’re just saying that because Terushima is a terrible vice president who couldn’t design a club flyer to save his life,” Kei scoffed, and Noya snorted in agreement. “And how do you know when I was there last? Weren’t you banned from official meetings?”

Noya rolled his eyes. “Sure, but Asahi and Ryuu tell me _everything_ that happens without me. Even though Ryuu has the emotional intelligence of a brick, he can at least remember which times a certain Yamaguchi Tadashi came in looking like he’d been crying.”

Kei narrowed his eyes. They definitely knew, then. Azumane edged closer to the register, subtly trying to nudge Noya away, but failing when Noya only grabbed onto his waist, still staring challengingly at Kei. “Um, do-do you want to order something?” Azumane stammered, glancing nervously between Kei and Noya.

“Yeah,” Kei responded tightly, though he maintained eye contact with Noya. “I’ll have a medium french roast. And an onion bagel with cream cheese.”

Noya decided to stick his tongue out at Kei, which was either a response to Kei’s stink-eye, or he thought onion bagels were gross.

“Stop that,” Azumane chided, gently swatting Noya on the head. “He might complain about us.”

“Yeah, I might leave you a bad review on Yelp.” Kei smirked at Noya.

“Well, he’d be the first,” Noya grumbled, finally stepping aside so Azumane could ring in his order.

Once Kei had paid, he leaned against the counter to loom over Noya while Azumane rushed off to toast his bagel. “You know, while everyone else was at your little club last night, I was getting laid.” He hadn’t planned on telling anyone about Kuroo, but he didn’t want Noya thinking he’d gotten the last laugh with that little dig about Yamaguchi.

“What?!” Noya screeched. He sounded angry, which was what Kei was hoping for. “With _who_?!”

“You wouldn’t know him.” Kei turned his head to the side with a little _hmph._ “He’s not in your year, and he doesn’t go to Pride.”

“Whatever. This campus isn’t that big. I’ll find out who he is.”

“How? Gonna send Tanaka to go snooping around for you?”

“I’m not on house arrest, _idiot._ ” Noya slapped his hand on the counter for emphasis. “I don’t need to send Ryuu to do _shit_ for me. There’s plenty of people who would tell me their darkest secrets.”

“Yeah, well. I just wanted you to know that maybe I have better things to do on Thursday nights. So don’t hold your breath waiting for me to come back.”

“As if,” Noya scowled.

“You’re the one who said you needed me.”

“Ugh! You’re the worst!”

Kei smirked and walked down to the end of the counter to grab his coffee and bagel. “Thanks, Azumane.” He retreated to a table where there were no students nearby and sat down. His head still throbbed unpleasantly and his ass and thighs were sore from last night’s activities. Good thing he’d thought to grab some food. His coffee was still too hot to drink, so he busied himself with spreading cream cheese on his bagel.

He didn’t know what he was going to do for the rest of the day. He’d already missed his classes, and his brief conversation with Noya had drained him of energy for any further social activity. He supposed he’d better text Yamaguchi. It was better than going back to the dorm and waiting to talk to him in person. He should probably go to the library, anyway, because midterms started on Monday and he still had so much to do. He’d fallen behind on a lot of reading.

_Okay, just focus. After you finish this coffee you can focus,_ he told himself.

He took a few bites of his bagel, and was just working up the courage to pull out his phone to text Yamaguchi when it started ringing. He immediately silenced the ringer and saw that the call was from Hinata.

“What?” he snapped after connecting the call.

“Where are you?” Hinata’s voice sounded manic as usual, mixed with a little annoyance. “You’re supposed to be at the computer lab! It’s already after four!”

Oh. Kei’s heart thumped as he realized he’d completely forgotten. He was supposed to introduce that blonde girl to Akaashi. Yachi. That was her name. “Sorry, I just woke up. I’m grabbing coffee, and then I’ll be right over.”

“Jesus, dude!” Hinata sounded disapproving, and Kei told himself that he didn’t care what he thought about his life choices. “I thought you were supposed to be reliable, or something. It’s a good thing Yachi got nervous and asked me to come with her, because she doesn’t have your number!”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be there in five minutes.” He was supposed to be reliable, huh? What a pain. He started wrapping up his bagel with one hand. “Tell Yachi I’m sorry.”

He hung up and hurried back out onto the quad. He was too tired for this. The computer lab where Akaashi worked was on the other side of campus. He worked his long legs for all they were worth and sipped tentatively at his coffee. Still too hot.

He slowed down as he approached the building where Hinata and Yachi were waiting, because he didn’t want to arrive out of breath. His limbs felt stretched and heavy, and he wished he’d thought to bring some water with him. But Yachi was waiting on the steps with fingers clenched together, and Hinata was fidgeting next to her. Too late to back out of something he hadn’t even wanted to do in the first place.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry I’m late,” Kei said with a wave as he approached them, trying to fend off complaints before they could be voiced. Of course, that didn’t stop Hinata.

“You suck,” Hinata asserted.

“So I’ve heard.”

Hinata frowned and shrunk back, as if surprised that Kei didn’t have a more biting comeback.

“That’s okay, Tsukishima.” Yachi looked too nervous to make any complaints herself. “Let’s just get inside.”

“Okay, I guess I’ll get going then.” Hinata hopped down the steps. “I’ll see you at dinner, Yachi!”

Kei led Yachi into the building. He didn’t really know what to say to her. He’d already apologized for being late. He glanced back at her as he led her down the hall towards the computer labs. She had a white-knuckled grip on the straps of her backpack, and her jaw was set in a way that suggested she was overcoming something great to even be here. He faced forward again and rolled his eyes.

“You know, you don’t have to be so nervous. Akaashi is really—” he almost said ‘professional,’ but he was worried that might intimidate her even more “—nice. If he doesn’t have time to help you, he’ll find someone who can.”

“O-oh. Okay…”

She didn’t sound any less nervous. Well, reassuring people had never been one of his strengths. He wasn’t going to hold her hand any more than he had to.

He opened the door to the big computer lab and poked his head in. He saw Akaashi sitting at his computer near the door and waved Yachi in, shutting the door gently behind them. There was only a handful of students working, and Akaashi stared at his screen with unblinking focus.

“Excuse me,” Kei said softly.

Akaashi’s eyes slid up to him slowly. “Tsukishima, isn’t it? What can I help you with?”

If Kei found Akaashi’s voice pleasant and calming, it had no such effect on Yachi, who had decided to hide behind Kei. He stepped to the side and put a hand on the middle of her back. “This is Yachi. She’s using Illustrator for a midterm art project, but she needs some help with the program. Do you think you’d have some time to tutor her?”

“I see.” Akaashi turned his gaze on Yachi. “When is your project due?”

“Oh, um, it’s d-due a week from Monday!” she squeaked.

“Mhmm.” Akaashi pulled out a planner from his small stack of books on the desk and flipped back and forth between two of the pages. “Well, it looks like I have a few hours of one-on-one time available on Sunday. Would two or three o’clock work for you, Yachi?”

“Yes! Sunday at two would be great!”

Kei stared at the wall.

Akaashi grabbed a smaller notebook and scribbled down a few words. “Okay, here’s what I need you to do. Today or tomorrow send me an email with your project requirements and which specific parts of the program you need help with. That way I can plan out our hour together to be as efficient and productive as possible.” He ripped the page out of the book and handed it to Yachi. It looked like he’d just written down his name and email address.

“Thank you! Thank you so much!”

“Yes, thank you, Akaashi,” Kei said. “We’ll get going now. Unless you have any other questions for him?”

Yachi shook her head furiously.

Akaashi lifted a hand and gave a little wave. “I’ll see you on Sunday, then. It was nice to meet you, Yachi.”

“See, that wasn’t so bad,” Kei told her when they’d moved out to the hallway. “I told you he was nice.”

Yachi clutched the paper he’d given her and stared straight ahead. “He’s so handsome,” she hissed. “You didn’t tell me he’d be so handsome!”

Kei laughed, he couldn’t help it. Of course he was handsome, he was _Akaashi._ “Is that going to be a problem?”

“I dunno,” Yachi muttered, “do you think I can get away with not looking at him for a whole hour?”

Kei chuckled again, and they started walking back towards the exit. “That could make for a really awkward study session.” He sipped his coffee and watched her slowly calm down. She kept her gaze fixed on the floor as they walked, and gradually her grip loosened on the straps of her backpack. She seemed to Kei like the kind of person who needed to give herself private pep talks constantly. She certainly wasn’t getting one of those from him.

When they stepped outside, Yachi let out a long sigh of satisfaction. Kei hesitated at the top of the steps, ready to say goodbye. The clouds had thickened, like it might rain soon. The library was looking like a good place to hole up for the rest of the evening. “Um…” He turned to face Yachi.

“Thanks for helping me. I’m sorry if it was a bother, but I have a hard time working up the courage to talk to those kinds of people by myself.”

“Oh.” He didn’t know exactly what she meant by ‘those kinds of people.’ Akaashi was just another student. “Well. You’re welcome.”

Yachi smiled hesitantly, and pulled her phone out from the pocket of her hoodie. “We should exchange phone numbers, shouldn’t we? Because I kind of owe you a favor now, and it’d be a pain for you to have to keep going through Shouyou to talk to me.”

“Eh…” He didn’t usually give out his phone number so easily. He usually only gave it out to friends, and he encouraged classmates to message him through Facebook if they needed to communicate for group projects or other school-related issues. But he didn’t want to wipe that fragile smile off of her face with a careless rejection. “...Okay, I guess.”

Exchanging numbers with her was enough, though. When she tried to get him to follow her to the dining hall, he had to brush her off. “Sorry, I’ve got a lot of studying to do.”

Yachi frowned, like maybe she wanted to argue or tell him off for skipping meals, but before she could open her mouth, Kei’s long legs were already carrying him far from her. In his mind, he had done his duty, so he was already thinking about other things. He still needed to add Kuroo’s number to his phone, before he lost that purple folded-up note, but first he needed to text Yamaguchi while he still had his phone in his hand.

As he approached the library, he forced his fingers to type out a message to Yamaguchi, and tried not to think to hard about whether or not he would read it and reply.

_Kei: Sorry I made you worry. I had my phone turned off all night. (4:28 p.m.)_

He pocketed his phone and made the final push towards the library. Despite helping Yachi and finally texting Yamaguchi back, his heart still felt uneasy. He could just tell that the next few hours in the library would be unproductive. He was too restless and distracted. Stupid—hypocritical—when he had kept Yamaguchi waiting almost a full day to hear back from him, but Yamaguchi was only one of the problems buzzing around his head.

He plopped down on one of the stone benches in front of the library and sipped at his coffee. He hated having to rely on anyone for support. With midterms just days away, he had no choice but to get his studying done. He’d already dropped one of his courses, so getting a passing grade on the midterms for the classes he hadn’t given up on seemed like the bare minimum. He normally had no problem tuning out his personal problems and focusing on his studies. But he realized that he needed to talk to someone.

Calling Kuroo was out of the question. He didn’t want to talk to Hinata, either—he’d gotten enough intrusive perkiness with Noya already that day. He took his phone out again, dialed a number, and sighed when it went to voicemail.

“Call me back when you get the chance. It’s not really urgent, but I’d like to talk to you.”

Kei hung up and stared at his phone for a minute. Akiteru was probably at work already. He was a line cook at a pretty popular Italian-American restaurant back home. Even though it was only 4:30, Fridays were always busy, so he was probably helping the prep cooks get ready for dinner. Akiteru rarely got chances to take a break during his shifts, so it seemed like Kei was out of luck.

He drank the rest of his coffee—it was starting to get cold, anyway—and stood up. He’d just have to buckle down, get some work done, and wait to talk to Akiteru later. His brother hadn’t always been there for him, but he’d really been trying these past few years. Kei could trust him.

* * *

_Kei was happier than he’d been in a long time. He stretched out on his bed, feeling warm and relaxed, yet elated. He’d cried in front of his mom, just a little bit, which at the age of seventeen was more than a little embarrassing and something he definitely didn’t want to repeat any time soon, but it had all worked out. He was accepted. He was loved._

_He almost texted Yamaguchi, but decided to call him instead. He had to hear his voice._

_“I did it,” he said once Yamaguchi picked up._

_“You did—No way. Are you okay? What happened?”_

_“It’s fine,” Kei reassured him, unable to keep the grin off his face. “It’s totally fine. She said she’s glad I told her, and that she loves me no matter what.”_

_“Oh my God.” Yamaguchi’s voice was hushed in awe. “That’s … that’s amazing, Tsukki! So does she know about us?”_

_“Yeah. She said … she said she had her suspicions, but wasn’t going to say anything until I was ready to tell her.” He flushed a bit at how embarrassing_ that _talking point had been, but it wasn’t enough to put a damper on his good mood._

_“I’m so happy,” Yamaguchi said. “I mean, this is a big deal. We don’t have to hide anymore.”_

_“I know. I’m sorry that it took so long for me to do this…”_

_There was a long moment of silence, and finally Kei chuckled. “You can say it. I won’t get mad.”_

_“Really?” Yamaguchi chimed in. “I guess it doesn’t really need to be said, but it’s true, so… I told you so! Ha! I told you so, I told you so!”_

_Kei pulled the phone away from his ear and winced at the increased volume of his boyfriend’s voice. “Okay, okay, don’t push it.” He’d never really been able to explain why exactly he thought his mom wouldn’t approve of him being gay, but he guessed it didn’t matter anymore. He’d been wrong. He was happy to admit that._

_“It does feel good to say it. But mostly I’m just happy that you’re okay, and that_ we’re _going to be okay.”_

_Kei heard a car door slam outside. “Hey, I gotta go now. I’ll text you before I go to bed, okay?”_

_“Okay. I love you.”_

_“I love you, too.”_

_Kei hung up and rolled off his bed. He heard the front door open and he slipped out of his room. He went into the living room to see Akiteru toeing off his shoes by the front door. “Hey,” he said when he saw Kei standing there. “Where’s mom?”_

_“She just went to bed.”_

_“Okay.” His brother made a beeline for the kitchen, where he quickly spotted the covered plate of food on the counter. “Smells good. Homemade meatballs?”_

_“Yeah.” Kei followed him into the kitchen. “They were really good. So was the conversation I had with mom.”_

_Akiteru had already peeled the plastic wrap off the plate and put it in the microwave. “Oh yeah? What’d you talk about?” Kei saw his back stiffen as the realization hit him. A moment later, he pressed the start button on the microwave, then turned around to face Kei with an excited expression. “Don’t tell me—”_

_“Yeah,” he said with a small smile. “Listen, though, I just got off the phone with Yamaguchi, and I already had to hear the whole ‘I told you so’ spiel from him, so—”_

_“I TOLD you so!” Akiteru bellowed, throwing out an accusing finger towards Kei and causing him to jump._

_“Jeeeeesus!” Kei gasped. “You’re worse than Yamaguchi!” The warmth in his brother’s eyes and the broad smile on his face kept him from getting pissed at him, though._

_“Just because you were being a scaredy-Kei for months doesn’t mean you get to deny me my bragging rights!”_

_Kei made a face. “That nickname has been deemed unsafe for consumption by the FDA. You can’t use it anymore.”_

_“I can call you whatever I want, because I told you so,” Akiteru retorted. “Besides, I know we’re both glad I was right.”_

_“If you’re not nice to me, I won’t let you give me a hug.” Suddenly unsure, Kei stared at the floor, because he really wanted a hug from his brother, but he didn’t want to make him uncomfortable. “C-can I hug you?”_

_“Yeah, sure.” Akiteru’s face softened, but his voice remained playful. “Because hugging is such a manly, brotherly activity.”_

_“You bitch,” Kei scowled at the floor._

_Akiteru crossed the small space of the kitchen and wrapped Kei up in a hug. “No more scaredy-Kei, all right?”_

_Kei pushed down his reflexive indignation at the idiotic nickname, because if anyone understood why he’d been scared to come out to his mom, it was Akiteru. He relaxed into the hug. “Thanks for keeping it a secret for so long. It must have been hard.”_

_“Nah. Secrets are easy.”_

* * *

It was almost nine o’clock when Akiteru called him back. “Yo, little bro. Everything okay?”

“Hold on,” Kei spoke lowly into the phone. “I’m in the library. I’ll call you back in sixty seconds.” He hung up without waiting for a response, saved his work, then turned off his laptop. He shoved his textbooks into his bag along with his laptop, then headed for the front door of the library. He’d picked a small table in the back of the first floor, so he didn’t have very far to walk. He’d taken a short break a few hours earlier to grab a few books and a water bottle from his dorm room, but then he’d gone right back to the same table.

When he was outside he called his brother back. “Sorry for bugging you. Are you still at work?” It had gotten colder, but it still hadn’t rained yet.

“Yeah. It’s been busy, but I finally got a chance to go out for a cigarette. So I’ve got at least five minutes to talk.”

“Are you supposed to smoke at work?”

“It’s okay, Saeko’s the manager on duty tonight. She doesn’t care what I do.”

“Oh, so because you fucked her you get to do whatever you want?”

“Kei.” His voice was suddenly stern. “Cut the crap. What’s going on?”

He took a deep breath. “I got in a fight with Yamaguchi last night. I mean, it was mostly me begging for him to take me back, but we yelled a lot, and then I kissed him, and he pushed me away. I kinda ran out on him after that, and I felt so shitty, so I went to this bar across town, and—”

“Since when do you go to bars?”

“I hardly ever get carded, you know that.”

“I know, but going to a bar by yourself? That’s—” Akiteru cleared his throat. “Sorry. Go on.”

“Well, I went to this bar because I was hoping to run into someone I’d met there before. But he wasn’t there. And then I remembered him mentioning that he worked at another bar.” He scratched his scalp. This was extremely uncomfortable to talk about, even with Akiteru. “So I went to where he worked, waited for his shift to end, and then I went home with him.”

There was a brief pause, and then his brother’s voice cut across the miles between them. “Are you fucking kidding me? How drunk were you, Kei? This is what I was worried about when you told me you were gay! This is why mom is always so worried about you! I mean, it was fine when you were dating Yamaguchi, but of course the moment you get dumped, you run off to—”

“ _Don’t._ ” Kei responded to his anger with a quick fury of his own. “Just shut up. You know, this is one of those situations where it would be really useful for you to _think_ before you talk. Because I know even _you_ aren’t really that much of a bigot.” The implication behind Akiteru’s words _hurt_ —that because Kei was gay, it was only his steady monogamous relationship that had held him back from going out and having one-night stands with everyone in town. But he knew that the only cure to Akiteru’s ridiculous emotional outbursts was to stop them before they could gain any steam. Before they hurt each other.

“You want me to think? You want me to listen? Then how about you tell me something that doesn’t terrify me!”

“I don’t need you to be terrified,” Kei snapped into the phone. “I just need you to be my brother! I just—” He struggled for a moment to calm his thoughts. “I just needed to get it off my chest. Maybe when you know how it feels to know you’ve hurt the person you love the most, and you know there’s nothing you can do to make it right, maybe then you can lay your judgments on me.”

Akiteru let out a long sigh. Probably filled with smoke. “I do know how it feels, though. I mean, not your specific situation, but shit… I know-I know we never talk about it, but I’ve been through dark times, too.”

“I know. I know that, but for me it’s not okay because you think that all men are predators.”

“I didn’t say—”

“You _just_ said that—No. Forget it. You can think whatever you want, but just _listen._ I was drunk, and I was reckless, but it was the only thing I could think of that would make me feel better. And he didn’t take advantage of me. It wasn’t like that. If anything, I pushed him into it. But the way he was this morning… He wasn’t an asshole or anything. I mean, he’s a bit of a jerk, but only in that I-know-I’m-hot-so-I-can-get-away-with-saying-stupid-shit way. But he was just decent, trying to make sure I was okay, and just—” he thought back to how Kuroo had been sensitive to his hangover, speaking gently and bringing him aspirin, and the way he’d put his lunch with his best friend on hold just to give him a ride, and how he’d _apologized_ , and Kei couldn’t help the heat that rose to his cheeks, “—cool,” he ended lamely.

“So what, do you think you might want to date this guy?” Akiteru asked skeptically, but at least he wasn’t yelling anymore.

“No. I don’t know.” He thought about the open, casual Kuroo he’d met that first time at the bar, and the serious, hesitant person he became when he was alone with Kei, and wondered if he was worth getting to know better. “I’ve had a hangover most of the day, so I haven’t really been able to think that far ahead. I guess that’s why I wanted to talk to you. Get some perspective.”

“Well, I’d better get going back to work. But shit, Kei, I mean, you’re twenty years old and you just got out of a long relationship. You should be focusing on school and your friends. If you want to have sex, I totally understand, but just be careful and take it slow, okay?”

“It’s a little too late for that.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah.” He knew that entering a new relationship, even if it was only physical, came with risks. “Thanks for listening.”

“No problem, buddy. You know you can talk to me any time, right? And I promise I won’t yell at you next time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did not originally intend for the phone call with Akiteru to be so dramatic, but I got inside his head a little bit, and decided yeah, he's gonna be pissed, overprotective big bro. He can't always be a sweet angel, can he?
> 
> Random note: It was really hard to keep typing Azumane instead of Asahi. But my headcanon for Tsukki in this fic is that he refers to everyone by their last name, except for his brother. He rarely even uses Yamaguchi's first name, usually only when they have sex or if he's feeling particularly vulnerable. No point in explaining this in the story, but I think it just adds to Tsukki's aloof demeanor. I hope it doesn't make it awkward for the characters like Asahi who are usually addressed by their first name in canon.


End file.
